EVE AND THE HANDYMAN (1961) * ½

The persistent Eve (Eve Meyer, wife of the director, Russ Meyer) follows a handyman (Anthony James Ryan) all around town.  Wherever he goes, she spies on him (usually while he’s peeping on various women) and takes notes.  After about an hour of foolishness, we finally learn why Eve has been stalking him.   

 

At first, Eve and the Handyman seems like it is going to be a clever switcheroo on the old Peeping Tom plotline as we have a woman Peeping Tom (would that make her a Peeping Thomasina?) peeping on a Peeping Tom while he’s peeping.  However, very little is done with the concept as it’s just a clothesline to hang a bunch of innocent, unfunny, and just plain dumb comic relief scenes.  The jokes and sight gags are all pretty lame, but I guess that’s to be expected in a nudie-cutie, a genre that’s not exactly known for its crackling wit.  

 

The most perplexing scene occurs when the handyman dips off into the woods where a nurse is waiting for him.  He then changes into ER scrubs and delivers a baby tree?!?  (He even spanks the sapling’s bottom.)  I have no clue what the heck all this had to do with anything, except maybe pad out the running time.   

 

I could deal with all the scenes of the handyman perving on women in the bathroom as he cleans toilets, ogling secretaries while washing windows, and looking down the blouses of waitresses in an ice cream parlor.  The other comedy shit was downright painful.  The big reveal at the end is corny too. 

 

I guess most of this would’ve been easy to stomach if the nudity was up to Russ’s usual standards.  Unfortunately, the skin quotient is appallingly low.  (I guess Russ wasn’t about to let his wife be projected nude onto hundreds of movie screens nationwide.)  Mostly, all we get is a woman shown nude from behind in a laundromat and another who has a brief skinnydipping jaunt in a creek.  Alas, no frontage is shown.  The only real nude scene comes during an artist’s model sequence near the end, but it’s too little too late. 

 

I know most of Meyer’s early movies are a little on the tame side, but this one is awfully lightweight and cheesy.  It’s neither funny nor sexy and has to rank among his worst films.  It’s not all bad though.  There is one sequence in particular that showcases a glimpse of Meyer’s brilliance.  It’s a great send-up of the old hitchhiking scene from It Happened One Night that would’ve made its own great stag loop or one-reeler (if it featured any nudity, that is). 

MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) *** ½

Nostalgia is a tricky beast.  I’d say Mortal Kombat 1-3 are the last video games I have any real nostalgia for.  (At least in the arcade anyway.)  Would I have enjoyed this new Mortal Kombat movie if I didn’t have nostalgia for the old games?  Probably, but the nostalgia factor certainly helped put it over the top.  I mean, I really enjoyed the original film when it came out in the midst of Mortal Kombat mania.  However, with the benefit of nostalgia, this one seems… even better?   

 

Let’s face it, I haven’t played a Mortal Kombat game since Part 4, so I’m out of the loop when it comes to the new stuff.  The games now have Robocop and Rambo and shit in them, which to me makes it seem less like Mortal Kombat and more like Ready Player One.  The good news is, this new adaptation is pretty much aimed at old video game nerds like me who are only familiar with the older games. 

 

The original movie was the best film you could’ve made from that material.  What makes this version interesting is that it usurps our expectations.  Instead of having the plot take place almost entirely within the confines of a fighting tournament, it’s about the bad guy trying to kill off all the heroes BEFORE the tournament even happens.  Some fans may be dismayed by this, but i kind of dug it.  I mean, the tournament fighting plotline has already been done to fatality… I mean, death, so this was a nice little change of pace.   

 

While it may not be the film some Mortal Kombat fans were hoping for, it’s filled with plenty of great gory deaths and little moments that fans of the games will love.  I mean there’s a scene where someone is defeated by leg sweeps alone.  In the game, this was a cheap move that even the most novice player could do to beat someone.  It’s such a deep cut that it makes me want to give the movie Four Stars just for this scene alone.  I can’t quite do that though as the flick overall is far from perfect.  However, it does offer up tons of goofy, gory fun.

 

The cast is fairly strong too.  Josh Lawson is awesome as Kano.  Trevor Goddard was great in the original movie as Kano, playing him as the guy you loved to hate, but Lawson really ups the ante here.  Every time he’s on screen talking shit to the other combatants, it’s a pure joy to watch.  He steals every scene he’s in and gets all the best lines like, “Maybe your [special move] is getting beat up by a hat!”  Kabal was my favorite character in the Mortal Kombat 3 game, so it was a real treat to see him being brought to life, especially when the filmmakers made him such a total asshole (although maybe not as big of an asshole as Kano).  Damon (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood) Herriman’s voice work for the character is outstanding too and he gets some big laughs as well.

 

I was a little hesitant about the new character, Cole Young (Lewis Tan) who acts as the leading man.  He’s not in the games, and is more of an audience substitute, which really wasn’t necessary.  Thankfully, his character worked out as well as could be expected.  At least they give him an important lineage that connects him back to the game.   

 

I could probably nitpick this down to a *** review, but it’s hard to dismiss some of the big crowd pleasing moments and gory demises that makes it so much fun.  My favorite death came via a buzzsaw, but the old school Kung Fu fan in me appreciated the nod to Riki-Oh too.  As a fan of the game, I will admit I applauded at several junctures, something I haven’t done with a movie in a long time.

 

Overall, I think I enjoyed this more than the first movie.  I liked the way it expanded the world and scope of the game and integrated more mythology and backstories into the mix.  It may not be a "Flawless Victory", but it's one of the best video game adaptations ever made and a helluva lot of fun. 

UNHINGED (2020) ** ½

Unhinged was the first major release of the pandemic and it’s easy to see why because it’s a thoroughly disposable (but mostly enjoyable) little thriller.  While at first glance it may seem like a loose remake of Duel, it’s actually closer in spirit to those ‘90s “From Hell” thrillers in which the protagonist finds themselves at the mercy of a psycho who intends to make their life a living Hell.  In this case, it’s the Road Rage Driver From Hell. 

 

Single mom Rachel (Caren Pistorius) finds herself running late on her way to work.  In a rush, she honks the horn at a truck who refuses to go at a green light.  When the driver (Russell Crowe) demands an apology for her rudeness, she ignores him, and takes off.  He soon follows her and sets out to terrorize her both on and off the highway. 

 

Unhinged is a perfectly serviceable thriller.  It would’ve looked right at home on video store shelves twenty-five years ago next to the likes of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Unlawful Entry, and The Temp.  It played just fine for me at home with zero expectations and little fanfare.  I think I might’ve been a little pissed if I paid money to see it in a theater during a global pandemic though.   

 

Pistorius is a solid heroine.  What’s interesting is that she probably could’ve diffused the situation early on.  Instead, she only enraged the driver more.  I know she was having a bad day and running late, but his day was even worse (he killed his ex-wife and her lover and burned their house down).  They say you should always be kind to others because you never know what they are going through.  This isn’t exactly what they meant by that, but I guess it is the extreme version of that proverb. 

 

Crowe packed on the pounds and sports a shaggy beard as the aggressive driver.  I’m not sure if this was his test run for an eventual DTV career or if he was just looking to sink his teeth into a villain role, but he’s not bad.  It might’ve been better if they went with someone who really knew how to chew the scenery though. 

 

The first and third acts work the best.  It’s here where the film leans heavy on Duel for inspiration as the cat and mouse chase plays out on the highway.  These sequences also give us a few quality vehicular homicides and crashes.  The middle section where Crowe makes a couple of pit stops to terrorize Pistorius’ nearest and dearest are kind of unnecessary and help drag the pace down.  However, whenever Unhinged keeps it on the road, it’s a decent flick. 

THE CUTTER (2006) **

Daniel Bernhardt kills a bunch of archaeologists in Egypt and steals some priceless jewels from a mummy’s tomb.  He then travels to Spokane, Washington and kidnaps the only diamond cutter (The Love Boat’s Bernie Kopell!) capable of cutting the stones.  His niece (Joanna Pacula) then hires an experienced private investigator (Chuck Norris) to find her father and recover the jewels.   

 

The Cutter finds Norris in fine form.  He’s a little older and not quite as spry as he used to be, but he delivers a good performance.  The supporting cast is equally good.  Bernhardt fares pretty well as the villain, who in addition to being a martial artist and assassin, is a master of disguise and is fluent in several languages.  He usually seems stiff and uncomfortable in a lot of his movies, but he makes for a solid adversary this time around.  Pacula is a strong (and age-appropriate) leading lady, and it was fun seeing Tracy Scoggins popping up in the mix as a sexy cop.  Love Boat fans will probably enjoy it just to see Kopell in his largest role in some time as the titular cutter.   

 

While The Cutter contains some solid performances and a decent premise, the shitty action sequences really take the wind out of the movie’s sails.  In addition to the lackluster fights, shootouts, and car chases, there’s also a bunch of unnecessary zoom ins and outs, rapid fire editing, shaky-cam camerawork, and camera shuttering during many of the action moments and/or transition scenes that will almost immediately get on your nerves.  I know, I know, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a DTV action flick with terrible editing quirks in the ‘00s, but every time I see one it just further reinforces why so many of these things are sometimes painful to watch.  Fortunately, these little ticks become less and less frequent as the film wears on.  It’s just a shame that the big Bernhardt vs. Norris fights are close quarters affairs with uninspired choreography. 

 

Also, the flick is filled with a lot of unnecessary flashbacks that help pad out the running time.  It’s one thing for Chuck to have nightmares about the girl he couldn’t save early in the movie.  It’s another thing to have Bernhardt flashing back to killing the archaeologists, especially when we just saw him do it fifteen minutes earlier in the film.  If these moments had been cut, The Cutter would’ve moved along at a tighter clip. 

FOREST WARRIOR (1996) **

A lot of the same people responsible for Top Dog were also behind Forest Warrior.  They must’ve thought that the only way they could top pairing Chuck Norris with a dog was to have him share the screen with bears, wolves, and eagles.  Like Top Dog, it’s pretty much a dumb kid’s movie, but at least it’s consistently corny and doesn’t have a weird mean streak. 

 

Norris plays a mountain man who was killed by some dastardly villains in his beloved forest in the nineteenth century.  His spirit then became one with nature and has spent over a century guarding the forest from harm.  When a greedy lumber tycoon (Terry Kiser from Weekend at Bernie’s) wants to strip the woods for profit, it’s up to Chuck to make him see the forest for the trees.   

 

Like a lot of Chuck’s movies, Forest Warrior has way too many characters and subplots that get in the way of Chuck kicking ass.  All the sub-Goonies shit with the kid characters camping in the extreme treehouse and stumbling upon the tycoon’s plot feels like some real Disney Channel type crap.  The flashbacks to townsfolk’s encounters with the forest spirit also eat up precious screen time, and the mini-musical number is completely gratuitous.  You also have to put up with some lame Home Alone-inspired gags where the kids plant booby traps in the woods to deter the loggers.   

 

I will admit that I admire the film’s earnestness.  It’s not very good, but it wears its heart on its sleeve.  If anything, it plays better as a throwback to the days of environmentally conscious fare like Billy Jack and Grizzly Adams than as a traditional Chuck Norris actioner. 

 

The supporting cast is solid too.  While Kiser gamely chews the scenery as the villain, Roscoe Lee Browne lends the proceedings a touch of class as the owner of the old timey general store who knows the legend of the Forest Warrior.  We also have Loretta Swit as one of the kid’s moms, Michael Beck as a drunk dad, and William Sanderson as a sniveling lawyer.   

 

Unfortunately, Norris doesn’t get a lot of screen time in this one as much of the focus is on the kids and their misadventures.  On the plus side, he gives a good performance as he is clearly invested in the role.  Much of Forest Warrior is kiddie fodder, but where else are you going to get to see Chuck Norris transforming into wolves and eagles, karate kicking loggers, and resurrecting dead kids using forest magic?  I mean, any movie that ends with Chuck Norris morphing into a grizzly bear can’t be all bad.  In fact, more movies should end that way, in my opinion.    

 

As far as environmental themed action movies from the ‘90s go, Forest Warrior is a lot better than On Deadly Ground, that’s for sure.   

 

AKA:  Action Warrior.   

TOP DOG (1995) *

This week, I was a guest on Ty and Brett’s Comeuppance Reviews Podcast talking about our favorite and not-so favorite Chuck Norris movies.  You can hear the entire discussion here: The Chuck Wagon (podbean.com).  To prepare for our chat, I went ahead and watched a couple of Chuck flicks that I somehow hadn’t got around to watching.  Much to my surprise, that wasn’t many.  (I still need to see An Eye for an Eye and Bells of Innocence, but other than that, I’ve seen them all.)   

 

First up on my Chuck binge watch was Top Dog, and boy, is it a tonal nightmare from start to finish.  It is a sorry retread of the Cop and his Dog Partner motif that was already mined by Turner and Hooch and K-9.  It’s also got a little bit of the Mad Bomber plotline that was popular in the early ‘90s with such films as Speed, Blown Away, and Die Hard with a Vengeance.  (There’s even a bomb-diffusing finale.)  The fact that it premiered around the same time as the Oklahoma bombing further soured moviegoers on this, which for my money, has to be Chuck’s worst.   

 

Reno the dog (himself) is one of the best cops on the force.  When his partner is murdered by some white supremacists, he is saddled with a grumpy, slovenly cop named Jake Wilder (Chuck Norris).  The mismatched pair eventually learn to accept each other on their own terms in order to stop the bad guys from blowing up “The Collation for Racial Unity”.    

 

On the surface, Top Dog looks like a kid’s movie.  The scenes of Chuck Norris and the pooch feel like something out of a Disney flick, and the comedic reaction shots of the dog whenever Chuck is fighting are particularly lame.  Despite all the kid-friendly dog stuff, it is much too violent for most children and way too cutesy for fans of Chuck.  Also, it features some rather despicable white supremacist villains who really feel out of place in a dumb film aimed at kids.   

 

The stuff with Chuck getting to know the dog is painfully unfunny.  The constant dog POV shots are especially hard to take.  The action beats aren’t exactly bad, but just seem like they came out of a different movie.  The subplot with Chuck and his nagging mother also feels like a set-up for a Stop or My Mom Will Shoot-style action-comedy that nobody asked for.  Plus, it’s unnecessarily mean-spirited, which I’m sure will turn many viewers off.  I mean the dog gets shot in the first five minutes!  At least Turner and Hooch waited till the end to pull that shit.   

SKYLIN3S (2020) *

Skyline was an OK, but forgettable low budget sci-fi survival flick.  Its sequel, Beyond Skyline upped the budget and spectacle, and yet it failed to really stick in my memory banks either.  The best thing I can say about the third film in the franchise, Skylin3s is that I’ve almost forgotten everything about it, and I just watched it.

This one picks up a few years after Beyond.  The alien/human hybrid Rose (Lindsey Morgan) is now the leader of the human resistance.  Unfortunately, the alien warriors she converted to her cause have caught a virus that threatens to turn them back into their original human-hating state.  She then must take a ragtag team of grunts into space and bring down the alien mothership once and for all. 

I’m glad the movie started off with a recap of Beyond Skyline because I had already forgotten most of it.  Afterwards, there’s a big chunk of the film where not a whole lot happens, which made me wish they had cut out the first half-hour and rolled highlights of it into the opening recap.  That would’ve gotten the show on the road a lot sooner.  Even then, the show, such as it is, is a dull slog.  What’s worse is that the monsters, ships, and various other special effects are often dark, ugly, and cheap looking.  (The alien sidekick whose sole schtick is to curse in his native tongue is really annoying.)  The whole thing resembles a bad ‘90s DTV sci-fi flick.  (Or maybe a bad early ‘00s Sci-Fi Channel show.)  The fact that Daniel Bernhardt is one of the main actors, sort of adds to that feeling. 

Maybe if the alien action was cool, I could’ve let a lot of this slide, but it’s well below average.  What’s worse is that Mad Dog himself, Yayan Ruhian is completely wasted in what is essentially a glorified cameo.  I’m not even sure why they decided to bring him back because he’s only in it for a minute or two in what amounts to be half an action scene.  To be fair, that’s more than he got to do in The Force Awakens, but still.

Heck, I might’ve been more forgiving if the flick clocked in at eighty minutes or so.  However, it runs a whopping one-hundred-and-thirteen minutes.  Much of the running time could’ve easily been scrapped.  It might’ve worked if the script stuck to Rose’s adventure in space, because the earthbound ground assault scenes add nothing to the plot and only help to bring Skylin3s to a crashing halt.

AKA:  Skylines.