PHASE IV (2003) ***

No, this isn’t a remake of the killer ant flick from the ‘70s.  It’s a braindead, albeit rather amusing conspiracy thriller/action flick.  Dean Cain stars as a disgraced former football star-turned-Navy SEAL-turned-journalism student who gets the plum assignment for his college newspaper to solve the death of his best friend who was killed by an evil pharmaceutical company working on a cure for AIDS.  

I have to be honest with you:  “Dean Cain stars as a disgraced former football star-turned-Navy SEAL-turned-journalism student who gets the plum assignment for his college newspaper to solve the death of his best friend who was killed by an evil pharmaceutical company working on a cure for AIDS”, is a sentence I never thought I would ever type.  I’ve typed it twice now and I still don’t believe it.  

You have to think the original script might’ve called for someone considerably younger to play the journalism student.  I’m not saying thirtysomething disgraced football players who used to be Navy SEALS can’t make a career U-Turn and go back to school or anything.  It just seems an oddly convenient way to explain why our hero A) Is a little old to be a college student B) Has a bum knee that the bad guys exploit every time the filmmakers need to wrap up a scene C) The ability to miraculously pull off dime store Jackie Chan maneuvers, even though he has the aforementioned bum knee (he even outruns a speeding car with his bad knee in one scene) D) The ability to use a football as a deadly weapon and E) The ability to turn a football stadium into a death trap (probably the biggest laugh in the movie).  

Speaking of football, The Boz himself, Brian Bosworth co-stars as the henchman for the evil corporation who is tasked with eliminating Cain.  I like The Boz as much as the next red-blooded American, but he is a bit miscast as a villain.  Seeing him in his three-piece suit, earpiece communicator, and goatee is a hoot.  Remember in Superman 3 when Superman got hit with the generic brand Kryptonite and turned into only a slightly repugnant guy and not really a “bad” guy?  That’s the kind of energy The Boz brings to the role.  Maybe if the film had been made ten years earlier, Boz could’ve played Cain’s role.  The football theme probably would’ve made a lot more sense.

Phase IV kind of gets bogged down whenever it goes into conspiracy thriller mode.  Three Days of the Condor this is not.  The use of AIDS as a major plot point approaches tastelessness at times too, especially for a dumb Dean Cain/Brian Bosworth production.  

You know what, though?  Just when I try to dislike movie, I remember that Dean Cain stars as a former-disgraced-football-star-turned-Navy-SEAL-turned-journalism-student who gets the plum assignment for his college newspaper to solve the death of his best friend who was killed by an evil pharmaceutical company working on a cure for AIDS, and I have to smile a little bit.  (Sorry, I had to type it again.  I don’t when I’ll get the chance to ever do that again.)  

Second Opinions:

Direct to Video Connoisseur:  Direct to Video Connoisseur: Phase IV (2001) (dtvconnoisseur.blogspot.com)

Comeuppance Reviews:   Comeuppance Reviews: Phase IV (2002)

ICE CREAM MAN (1995) *

Did you ever watch a movie that is totally stacked with actors and actresses you’re a big fan of and somehow NONE OF IT WORKS?  A movie that has a premise that sounds like it can’t miss and then it does?  Do they have a name for this phenomenon?  If not, may I suggest they call it Ice Cream Man Syndrome.  

Here is a movie with an unbeatable premise:  Clint Howard is a crazy ice cream man who kills people and then puts them into his famous ice cream.  What could go wrong?  Everything apparently.  

One of the many, many, flaws in this flick is that Howard starts at 11 and there’s nowhere to go.  What kid in their right mind would buy ice cream from a bug-eyed creep with a scary voice who sells a very questionable product that has visible eyeballs in it?  His schtick is paper-thin in the beginning and it gets more grating the longer the movie goes on.  It would be one thing if he had some funny one-liners to at least soften the blow of all this nonsense, but lines like, “You’re ice cream!” and “Are you having a bad day?” are more puzzling than anything.  It might’ve worked if the kills were creative.  However, his big trick seems to be just sticking severed heads on an oversized waffle cone.  When he runs out of cones, he puts the heads on popsicle sticks and does puppet shows with them…?  I dunno.  I exhaled more bewildered exhausted sighs during this movie than any in recent memory.

On paper, this should’ve been a bull’s eye.  The ‘90s were a great time for thrillers where people in seemingly harmless jobs snap and go on a murder spree.  Ice Cream Man certainly fits that description, but it’s halfheartedly put together, with too many moving parts, subplots, unnecessary characters, flashbacks, and God knows what else that it often strays from its central premise.

I was very tempted to give it a No Star review because it is one of the most tedious things I’ve sat through in some time.  The reason it skates by with One Star is for the cast alone.  In addition to Howard, we have the American Werewolf himself, David Naughton as a philandering husband, Conan’s Sandahl Bergman as his suffering wife, David Warner as a priest, Lee Majors… II, and porn star Tori Welles.  

Special attention must be paid to Jan-Michael Vincent’s performance as a cop.  I know he was struggling with the bottle at the time, and I have no wish to slam somebody who was clearly having addiction issues… but… WOW.  Then there is The People’s Court’s Doug Llewelyn as a grocery store manager who gets the only good line in the movie when he asks a patron, “Are you going to take it to court?”  Then, of course I remember a world-class fox like Olivia Hussey is in it, and the filmmakers do her the great disservice of dressing her up like a senile old lady and I start to get pissed off all over again.  

I’m saving the best for last though.  Do you know who else is in this movie?  STEVE GARVEY!  The Los Angeles Dodgers legend made this the year as his immortal turn in Bloodfist 6:  Ground Zero, and I’m sure the experience of being thoroughly wasted in a nothing role of one of the kid’s boring parents soured him on acting in future film projects.  

I guess I could probably put a lot of blame on the script for the Ice Cream Man’s problems but seeing how it was co-written by David Dobkin who would go on to direct Wedding Crashers, it’s fair to say his original vision was sullied somewhere during production.  Therefore, I think we got to point the finger at director Paul Norman (who was married to Welles at the time).  Norman directed over a hundred porno movies in his time, and this was the only “legitimate” feature under his belt.  You would’ve thought that because of his background in porn he would forget about the plot and get right to the action, but this one is all plot.  After this did nothing for his career, he went back to doing what he knew best, making such classics as Cry Babies Pt. 1:  Anal Scream, Bitches in Heat Pt. 1:  Locked in the Basement, and Bi and Beyond Pt. 6:  Authentic.   

A QUIET PLACE PART II (2021) ** ½

This sequel to the surprise hit A Quiet Place offers more of the same.  Did you like all the scenes of Emily Blunt and her family tiptoeing around a desolate wasteland while trying to avoid detection by CGI monsters in the first movie?  This one has a lot more of them.  

Director John Krasinski starts things off with a bang with a flashback to the first day of the monster attack.  From there, we pick up from the events of the last film.  Part of what made the original a tight, well-oiled machine was the family dynamic.  The sequel splinters the family into thirds, which kind of dilutes some of the power, especially whenever Krasinski is cutting back and forth between the groups as they are simultaneously fighting for their lives.    

The narrative is mostly a series of side quests.  The family meets up with another survivor (Cillian Murphy) who begrudgingly helps Blunt’s daughter (Millicent Simmonds) to a radio station to broadcast a signal that could kill the monsters once and for all.  Meanwhile, Blunt is off looting the ruins of suburbia looking for medicine for her wounded son (Noah Jupe) while he stays behind to guard his newborn sibling from the monsters.

All things considered, it’s a solid, if unspectacular follow-up.  It lacks the freshness of the original and when it tries to open up the world-building aspects of the universe, it’s only a half-measure.  While the third act builds up a little hope for the future of mankind, the abrupt cut-to-black ending doesn’t do it any favors.

Blunt is quite good, and her screen presence helps elevate what could’ve been a ho-hum sequel into something slightly more watchable.  You’ve got to give her credit.  It maybe the end of the world, but her hair and make-up game is on point.  Not many actresses could look this good while evading monsters after the apocalypse.  Sure, you might have to protect your family from alien creatures after society has crumbled, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look your best doing it.  

THE SON OF SANTO IN THE LAWLESS BORDER (1983) * ½

In 1983, El Santo was nearing the end of his movie career.  I think there might’ve been an expectation for the Son of Santo to continue in his father’s footsteps.  Ultimately, the Son of Santo never found the success his father had, as he only starred in a handful of features.  

Mobsters are using strongarm tactics to buy up land along the Mexican border.  A couple of concerned farmers hire the Son of Santo to protect their property from the gangsters.  Sure, that plot description is a little thin, which would be okay if the wrestling action was top notch.  As it is, the wrestling scenes are kind of ho-hum.  The Son of Santo participates in a six-man tag team match, which suffers from some crummy camera placement as much of the match is filmed from afar.  About halfway through, the top-billed Mil Mascaras shows up to give the movie a slight boost, but even his wrestling sequences fail to impress.  

Comparisons to the star’s father are inevitable.  He just doesn’t have the screen presence his old man had.  He fares better during the action as his fighting skills are more Kung Fu-inspired.  However, the staging of the fights leave something to be desired.  (Once again, the erratic camerawork is often to blame.)  

It doesn’t help that the Son of Santo kind of gets lost in his own movie as there’s way too many supporting characters that gum up the works.  (The most egregious being the comic relief priest.)  Add to that the abundance of padding in the form of nightclub performances (no less than FIVE of them), which also helps cut down on Son of Santo’s screen time.  Naturally, the lame modern-day western motif didn’t do the film any favors.  Maybe if Son of Santo had some mummies or werewolves to fight like his old man had, it would’ve made for a more entertaining picture.  

WILLY’S WONDERLAND (2021) * ½

Willy’s Wonderland has a premise that seems like it can’t miss and somehow manages to do so in record time.  Wildly.  Imagine if there was a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant that had a County Bears Jamboree-style band full of animatronic animals that came to life and killed people.  Now imagine that the only man who can stop them is Nicolas Cage.  Sounds promising, right?  Despite the seemingly foolproof set-up, the movie squanders nearly all its potential early on and it begins circling the drain shortly thereafter.  

The problems are numerous.  First off, the killer animatronics are lame and unmemorable.  It would’ve been something if they all had some kind of gimmick, but they are all kind of interchangeable, even if they are all completely different animals (and one Tinkerbell rip-off).  Another stumbling block is that the deaths, while gory, are staged in such a clumsy manner that we can derive little entertainment from the silly sight of the angry animatronic assault.  The shaky camerawork and whiplash editing during these scenes are reminiscent of an early ‘00s action movie.  That is to say, they are nearly incoherent.

Many of the other issues I had with the film could’ve been easily forgiven if it had managed to be entertaining.  Stuff like annoying teenagers, massive exposition dumps, and repetitive kills might not have been so arduous to endure if there was a sense of fun to the proceedings.  No such luck, I’m afraid.

However, the biggest miscalculation by far was taking such a gifted and energetic performer like Cage and asking him to dial the energy down to 0.  What’s worse, is that he doesn’t speak a single line of dialogue in the movie!  This might’ve been an intriguing idea had Cage been allowed to chew the scenery as compensation for his lack of dialogue.  In fact, had he attempted this silent gimmick in a completely different film, it might’ve work.  Ultimately, his Zen-like stare does little to enhance this one.  Heck, even if he had been allowed to go into a full-on Cage Rage and was given all the dialogue in the world, I’m still not sure he could’ve saved Willy’s Wonderland, but it would’ve been, at the very least, memorable.    

DUDES (1988) **

Jon Cryer, Daniel Roebuck, and Flea star as a trio of punks who have had it up to here with New York City and head on out to Los Angeles to start fresh.  While camping in the desert, they are jumped by a gang of rednecks led by Lee Ving who rob them and kill Flea.  When the local cops won’t lift a finger to help them, Cryer and Roebuck go out for revenge.  Along the way, they are guided by the spirits of a cowboy and a Native American who aid them in their quest for vengeance.  

Dudes is a weird movie.  It’s neither fish nor fowl.  At its core, I think it wanted to be a punk movie.  Director Penelope Spheeris made her bones directing the punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, and I think this was her attempt to graft that punk sensibility into a modern-day western kind of plotline.  The early going certainly works as Spheeris gives the punk club sequence an authentic vibe.  

When the film switches gears and becomes a revenge picture, it all sort of falls apart.  I can’t fault the actors.  Cryer and Roebuck do the best they can with their lame costumes (both punk and western attire).  Catherine Mary Stewart is also quite good as the tomboy love interest, but it’s Ving who leaves the biggest impression as the villain.  (He was also in Civilization.)  

It doesn’t help that the spirit quest Native American flashbacks and ghostly cowboy appearances are cheesy and poorly done.  It’s like Spheeris was in her element during all the punk rock scenes, but didn’t have a clue when it came to the western style stuff.  Not that you could really blame her, since the messy script was all over the place to begin with.  I did like the shootout that occurred in a movie theater that was playing a western in the background during the gunfire, but other than that touch, the third act feels rushed and lacks punch.

LICORICE PIZZA (2021) ***

Gary (Cooper Hoffman) is a child star from the Valley who has a crush on the older Alana (Alana Haim).  He charms her, despite the obvious age difference, and coaxes her into becoming his partner on a variety of get-rich-quick schemes that involve everything from waterbeds to pinball arcades.  Even though Gary is much younger than Alana, he seems to have it all figured out as he is confident, cocky, and a born hustler.  Alana on the other hand is still coming into her own and uses Gary’s hairbrained scams as a way to hopefully find herself.  

Licorice Pizza is Paul Thomas Anderson’s ninth movie.  It’s probably his most lightweight and forgettable flick, but when it hits the sweet spot, it’s a good time.  The push-me-pull-you platonic love affair between the two leads is sweet up to a point.  Both Hoffman and Haim give naturalistic performances that help make their characters feel like offbeat quirky people and not just your typical stereotypical characters you’re used to seeing in these coming-of-age films.  

The plot is episodic at best and repetitive at worst.  Most of the time, it feels like Anderson wrote a YA novel and then decided to instead adapt it into a movie.  Scene transitions are sometimes choppy, and occasionally feel like chapters in a book.  It also doesn’t help that Gary’s constant ping-ponging from scheme to scheme gets a little tiresome after a while.  While Hoffman and Haim have definite chemistry, their characters’ on-again off-again antics causes the flick to go in circles.  

Interestingly enough, the movie really comes to life when a couple of old pros show up for extended cameos and momentarily steal the show.  Sean Penn is great as an aging movie star who temporarily steals Alana away so he can recreate his most famous stunt.  Then there’s Bradley Cooper who blows everybody out of the water with his manic turn as producer Jon Peters.  The sequence where Hoffman and company play cat and mouse with him echoes the finale of Anderson’s Boogie Nights a little bit and is one of the best scenes he’s ever put on film.  It’s a shame the rest of the flick lacks the pizazz of this sequence, as most of the time, it meanders perhaps a bit too much.

While Licorice Pizza may be a lesser PTA flick, it’s still a PTA flick, and because of that, it’s still worth checking out.