THE TRACKER (2019) *

Dolph Lundgren stars as a tracker whose family is brutally murdered.  Ten years go by, and he gets word regarding the whereabouts of his family’s killers from an Italian cop.  When Dolph arrives in Italy, he learns the cop has died under mysterious circumstances.  He then joins forces with a wet behind the ears detective who helps him in his quest for revenge. 

It seems to me I’ve seen a lot of these Grindstone Entertainment movies lately.  You know how these things go:  Name action stars are prominently featured in the credits and box art, but they usually wind up having limited screen time.  Although The Tracker isn’t as egregious as some of the Bruce Willis flicks when it comes to its star barely appearing, there is a lot of unnecessary stuff with the detective that gets in the way of Dolph doing his thing.  (The domestic scenes with the cop and his very pregnant wife are especially time consuming.)

Still, even as brief as Bruce’s appearances in the other Grindstone flicks are, at least the movies themselves run the gamut from so-so to not bad to pretty good.  I can’t say the same thing for The Tracker, which is probably the worst Grindstone picture I’ve seen.  The tip-off this was going to be bad happened early on when Dolph’s family is kidnapped.  He goes to the cops and asks, “Have you found them yet?”, and I’m over here thinking… DUDE YOURE THE FUCKING TRACKER SHOULDNT YOU BE… I don’t know… TRACKING THEM OR SOMETHING? 

I mean, there’s this whole flashback scene in the beginning of the film where Dolph’s dad teaches him how to track his quarry.  His father also imparts to him the difference between tracking and hunting.  He maintains there is a sacred bond between the tracker and his quarry and that the act of tracking is intrinsically tied to a man’s nature.  

So… when it finally comes time to track something, Dolph… Lets the cops handle it?  Naturally, the bad guys get away.  Then, you’re expecting Dolph to go track them suckers down because, he is, after all, The Tracker.  Does that happen?  NOPE!  Instead, he waits ten years to finally do something about it, but ONLY after receiving a tip from a cop halfway around the world in Italy?  

What the hell. 

If you can’t already guess, The Tracker definitely belongs on the lower rungs of the Dolph ladder.  In fact, of the four films he’s made with director Giorgio Serafini, this one is by far the worst (the other three being Ambushed, Blood of Redemption, and Puncture Wounds).  There’s not a lot of action either, and what action we do get is poorly filmed and edited.  To add insult to injury, the plot is slim, the pacing is slow, and the villains are weak and unmemorable. 

Dolph spends lot of time driving in the first act looking bored.  He then moves on to hanging out in cafes and walking down the street wearing a scarf in the second act.  Once the action finally kicks in (kinda), he trades the scarf in for a poncho and spends a lot of time looking through a sniper scope.  In short, this is far from the best use of his talents. 

At least the movie is watchable whenever Dolph is on screen.  Whenever it cuts back to the Italian cop and/or the bad guys, it stops on a dime. In short, The Tracker ain’t worth tracking down. 

WHEN WOMEN LOST THEIR TAILS (1972) * ½

Last week, I watched the excruciating Italian caveman comedy When Women Had Tails to eulogize the late, great composer Ennio Morricone.  As bad as that movie was, it still had the charms of the luscious Senta Berger to make it bearable.  Her presence was the only reason I decided to give this lamebrained sequel a chance.  Oh, and Morricone also provided the score once again, although I suspect they just reused his music from the first movie.  

Right away, you notice that the production values are much better than the original.  Instead of filming the flick in a jungle somewhere, the producers actually sprung for a studio, and the art directors managed to come up with some halfway cool looking caveman digs.  (I liked their hollowed-out dinosaur house.)  The main inspiration this time seems to be The Flintstones as there are domestic scenes where Berger uses a parrot as a kitchen appliance.  Now, I know the “a woman needs to stay in the kitchen” rhetoric is outdated and only a Neanderthal would dare to suggest it, but you have to understand, we are dealing with actual Neanderthals here, so take that into consideration.  

Anyway, Senta is eking out a meager existence as a housewife to the five chucklehead cavemen from the first film.  A conman caveman comes to the tribe and realizes he’s sitting on a gold mine.  He then proceeds to bilk the thickheaded cavemen out of their money, home, and land; all the while making time with Senta.  (You see, she likes him because he’s apparently the only caveman who’s heard of foreplay.)  

This is just as stupid as its predecessor, but the upside is Senta looks even hotter than she did in the original.  In that film, they tried to make her look like a legitimate cavegirl by covering her in mud and filth, mussing her hair up, and making her wear unflattering animal pelts.  Here, she flat-out looks like a cheesecake model doing a prehistoric photoshoot.  Her hair is well-coiffed, her make-up is just so, and her ample cleavage is on full display in her form-fitting cavegirl attire.  It’s almost expected the caveman humor is going to be painfully unfunny, so at least the copious eye candy helps take away some of the sting.  

Yes, the humor is painful, but that’s nothing compared to the odd subplot about the sole gay caveman who is so depressed that he doesn’t have a mate that he pays one of his friends to kill him.  Just when you think you’ve seen everything.  In an appropriate setting, this scene might’ve been touching and sad, but it feels sorely out of place in a stupid Italian caveman sex comedy.

DREAMS COME TRUE (1984) **

Lee (Michael Sanville) is a shiftless factory worker who meets the girl of his dreams (Stephanie Shuford), quite literally.  They soon figure out their chance meeting was a product of astral projection that occurs whenever they have sex.  Eventually, the two lovebirds discover they’re able to whisk themselves away to far off places every time they do the deed.  

Dreams Come True is a low budget astral projection sex comedy/drama released by Troma, and it’s not nearly as exploitative (or fun) as their in-house productions.  Strangely enough, the version I saw had all the nudity cut out of it.  I can’t say that heaps of nudity would’ve salvaged the picture, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt.

At least the astral projection scenes have a kooky allure to them.  Every time the couple falls asleep, a glowing version of themselves rises up and begins spinning around towards the screen during a half-assed light show.  It kind of looks like a cross between outtakes from Xanadu and deleted scenes from an a-ha video.  These sequences are repeated often, but they do help break up the monotony of the ho-hum drama between the pair of paranormal paramours.  

While the comedy portions of the film are largely unfunny (like when they steal a pizza), it works much better than the awkwardly handled scenes of Shuford confronting her rapist uncle.  These scenes are unappealing and give the otherwise harmless movie a tinge of unnecessary unpleasantness.  It also doesn’t help that the matter is resolved in such an unsatisfying manner.

My favorite scene comes when the couple go to the movies and see The Children.  Later, while making love, they accidentally astral project themselves INTO the movie and are attacked by the ghoulish boys and girls from that classic killer kiddie flick.  That scene alone is enough to keep this one from being a total washout.  (Which makes sense since both films were from the same director.)

Oh, and the music for the movie was provided by the band Spooner, whose members later went on to form Garbage, so I guess that’s something. 

HITMAN’S RUN (1999) * ½

Hitman’s Run kicks off with a great opening scene.  The titular hitman, played by the one and only Eric Roberts, refuses to perform a hit.  He then gets into a car chase with his former employers that results in a pretty strong crash stunt.  So far, so good.  Unfortunately, it all goes downhill fast after that. 

Two years later, Eric is in the Witness Protection Program with a new life and a new family.  He cooperates with the Feds to testify against his former bosses when the Mob comes looking for him.  You see, they’ve come into possession of a disc with a list of the names of all the witnesses in the program.  The teenage hacker (Esteban Powell) responsible for obtaining the list winds up in Roberts’ charge, and together they have to race against time to save his girlfriend from the bad guys. 

Hitman’s Run was directed by great Mark L. (Showdown in Little Tokyo) Lester, but it’s far from his best work.  At all times the film feels like the producers had a bunch of unrelated car chase and car crash scenes sitting around the editing room and they decided to edit them together into a feature.  They cobbled together an overly simple (and yet, strangely overly complicated) story to hold everything together, but somehow forgot to make it fun.

While the action is decent, the stuff in between the car chases and shootouts is ho-hum at best, and downright irritating at worst.  Roberts isn’t bad.  His massive mullet is pretty rocking.  The big problem is Powell as the dorky teenage sidekick.  This kid will grate on your nerves something fierce, and the banter with him and Roberts is often insufferable. 

The supporting cast is solid though.  Brent Huff is in a few scenes as a hired gun, and C. Thomas Howell has the thankless job as the Fed helping Roberts.  I also enjoyed seeing Michael D. (The Ice Pirates) Roberts as Howell’s boss, and it was fun spotting perennial Mob movie vet Joe Viterelli as another killer in the Witness Protection Program. 

Although some of the action beats work, the editing throughout the film is choppy.  Some scene transitions look pretty rough, which only adds to the already awkward narrative.  The ending, set aboard a boat, is particularly sloppy.  Not only that, but it seemingly goes on forever, featuring everything from Mexican standoffs to Roberts swinging around on a rope like Tarzan to and a father/son reunion DURING a bomb diffusion scene.  

In the right hands, this might’ve worked.  This sort of thing is usually well within Lester’s wheelhouse, but for whatever reason he kinda dropped the ball on this one.  Because of that, even the most devoted Eric Roberts die-hards are likely to skip Hitman’s Run.

JACKIE CHAN: KUNG FU MASTER (2010) **

A teenage boy (Zhang Yishan) who idolizes Jackie Chan runs away from home to meet him and become his disciple.  Somewhere along the way, he gets kidnapped by a gang of pickpockets who hold him for ransom.  Eventually, the kid escapes thanks to a helpful policewoman (Jiang Hongbo) who takes him in.  When he learns Chan is filming a movie nearby, he runs off yet again and sneaks onto the set hoping to meet his idol. 

Jackie Chan:  Kung Fu Master is a well-meaning and heartfelt drama masquerading as a Jackie Chan movie.  Jackie appears only in the lame fight scene in the beginning that turns out to be a film within a film inside a dream sequence and once again in the finale.  (He also turns up in an airport safety video.)  Since nearly all the focus is on the annoying kid, much of the film is a bit of a chore to get through.  At first, I thought it was going to be kind of like a variation on the Chuck Norris flick, Sidekicks, but unfortunately, Chan is given even less to do here than Chuck. 

It also hurts that the fight scenes are subpar, and the comedy stuff is unfunny.  (The fast motion running gag is particularly weak.)  The humor is especially ill-fitting once the kidnapping subplot rolls around.  In fact, the whole thing has an uneven, episodic feel to it and very few sequences flow organically into the next.  (Most are just strung together by the kid’s half-assed narration.)

If you’re okay with watching a movie with the words “Jackie Chan” in the title that features very little Jackie Chan in it, then you may like Jackie Chan:  Kung Fu Master.  The rest of us will no doubt be disappointed.  I will say in its favor that the eventual meeting between Jackie and his starstruck fan hits all the right notes, but it’s ultimately too little, too late.

AKA:  Looking for Jackie.  AKA:  Looking for Jackie Chan.  AKA:  Jackie Chan and the Kung Fu Kid.

DOOM: ANNIHILATION (2019) **

Doom: Annihilation is a sequel/reboot to 2005’s Doom.  It follows in the cinematic tradition of Mortal Kombat in that it’s another sequel to a video game movie that uses the word “Annihilation” for its subtitle.  I guess I could say it’s a better film than Mortal Kombat:  Annihilation, although that isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.

A group of space marines go to the Mars moon of Phobos on a rescue mission.  There, scientists have discovered an ancient teleporter that connects our planet to other worlds.  Naturally, once they go through the portal, it brings forth monsters who bite people and turn them into mutant zombies.  It’s then up to the team to blow away as many of those suckers as possible. 

The first movie had good turn by The Rock, a decent plot twist, and at least one cool first-person shooter scene.  The rest of it was sort of insufferable.  I can say none of those things about this one as it’s consistently mediocre throughout.  There are no real highlights here, but there are no glaring missteps either. 

At all times, Doom:  Annihilation looks and feels like an early 2000s Syfy Channel show.  That will be your litmus test.  If you want to see a beloved video game franchise turned into an early 2000s Syfy Channel show, then you will probably eat it up.

For the most part, all of this is watchable.  However, it looks pretty cheap, and most of the monsters look like half-assed zombies.  You also have to wait a while before real monsters show up, and even longer to see the BFG.  Sadly, the filmmakers never let the heroine make good use of it. 

Speaking of which, Amy Manson gives about as good of a lead performance in this as you could hope for.  She’s tough and likeable and takes her role very seriously, even if the movie doesn’t.  She also looks convincing bossing around the other soldiers.  I will say the awkward romance with the dorky scientist feels forced, but hey, this is a fourteen-years-later-DTV-sequel-to-a-video-game-movie-starring-The-Rock we’re talking about here, so I’ll cut it some slack.

Overall, Doom:  Annihilation is rudimentary on just about all levels.  It aims low, but it hits its mark.  There’s something to be said for that.  It’s been a while since I played the game, so I’m not sure how some die-hard fans will take to it.  For me, it was an OK way to kill ninety minutes and change.

CHILD’S PLAY (2019) ***

I resisted seeing this remake of the 1988 horror classic in theaters (mostly because it didn’t stay very long).  I love everyone’s favorite foulmouthed killer doll, Chucky.  Heck, even the sloppy, uneven sequels are endearing to me.  It just seemed sacrilegious to reboot the franchise, especially given the fact that no one from the original was involved.  

I’m glad I waited a year or so to stream it in the comfort of my home because with lowered expectations, it turned out to be a lot of fun.  It’s just different enough from the original to justify its existence while still retaining the nasty edge that makes the series so great.  It’s consistently funny and has a cruel mean streak a mile wide.  Also, the gore that is just as over the top as some of the later sequels.  In short, it’s a legit Chucky flick. 

The bare bones of the original plot is the same.  A single mom (Aubrey Plaza) gets a talking doll for her son, Andy (Gabriel Bateman).  The big difference is that instead of being a riff on Cabbage Patch Kids mania, this Chucky is sort of a walking, talking Alexa.  This Child’s Play is less a parody on kiddie consumerism and more of a parable about inviting seemingly harmless technology into your home that will ultimately turn on you.  That means Chucky can synch himself up to the family’s devices and use the cloud to tap into everything from the house lights to the Roomba to driverless cars to drones to wreak havoc on his victims. 

Another interesting change is that it’s not voodoo that causes the doll to become malevolent, but a disgruntled employee who sabotages its wiring.  What separates this iteration of Chucky from the original series is that he’s not initially evil.  In fact, his main goal is to protect Andy from harm (or at least what he perceives to be harm.)  He only goes psycho once he’s spurned by Andy, who finds “real” friends.  In fact, you kind of feel bad for the little sucker, which is a compliment to the sharp writing and the stellar vocal performance by none other than Mark Hamill.  Hamill refuses to go over the top with the character and manages to imbue Chucky with a hint of sympathy.

Naturally, all that goes out the window once Chucky starts slicing and dicing.  I’m happy to say that the gore is often gnarly and some of the set pieces work better than you’d expect.  I had mixed feelings about director Lars Klevberg’s previous film, Polaroid, but there was enough there to suggest he had potential.  Child’s Play proves me right.  He gives the flick a sense of style that helps set it apart from the original franchise and injects a fun spirit that was more than appreciated by this horror fan.  (The nods to other horror and genre classics work very well.)  

While the film stops short of being a home run, it is consistently entertaining throughout and Klevberg delivers a killer finale.  As far as comparing the remake to the originals, I’d say this is probably the third or fourth best one, which is high praise coming from such a dyed in the wool Chucky fanatic.  I enjoyed this one so much that I am hopeful that both the original series and this new franchise can coexist peacefully.  I wouldn’t mind seeing new entries in both universes for years to come.