SEQUEL CATCH-UP: FAST X (2023) *** ½

The Fast and the Furious movies seem to combat ongoing franchise fatigue by simply doing what they do best while adding colorful characters to its increasing cinematic family.  In the case of Fast X, we have Jason Momoa showing up as the new villain, Dante who has a score to settle with Dom (Vin Diesel).  You see, Dom killed his dad in Fast 5 and now, he wants payback because… you know… family.  To his credit, Momoa injects some much-needed pizzazz into the proceedings with his smarmy screen presence and hammy scenery chewing.  In some scenes, he dresses like a cross between Sailor Ripley and Tony Montana.  In others, he looks like a cross between a genie and a grandma.  All the while, he does enough mustache twirling to make him seem right at home in a silent movie.  Even if you’ve grown tired of the typical F & F nonsense, you might want to see it for his Nicolas Cage levels of WTF theatrics. 

As for the movie itself, it’s pretty much another day at the office for the F & F crew.  Cars go vroom.  Bombs go boom.  Asses twerk in slow motion.  There are scenic shots of the ocean. 

Damn, I bet you didn’t think you’d get a poem in the middle of a Fast X review, but that’s just the quality reviewing my fans have come to expect from The Video Vacuum.

Director Louis Leterrier does a solid job with the action.  I wish he went a little crazier at times, but since there are a couple of scenes that pay homage to his legendary masterpiece, Transporter 2, it was all good.  I’m thinking specifically of the crane scene and the race where bombs are planted on the bottom of cars.  (Not to mention the third act appearance of the Transporter himself, Jason Statham, who gives the film a boost of testosterone late in the game.)  

I mean, the action scenes are fun, even if they are just variations in what we’ve seen before in other entries.  (Like Dom and company trying to maneuver a rolling bomb through the streets of Rome, cars dropping out of cargo planes, etc.)  They also do the patented F & F thing of having the villain from previous movies becoming aligned with Dom and his crew.  (In this case, it’s Charlize Theron’s Cipher, who gets a great knockdown drag out fight with Michelle Rodriguez). 

Other additions include Brie Larson as Kurt Russell’s daughter… because… you know… family (Kurt is sadly MIA in this one after putting in a ten second cameo in F9) and Reacher’s Alan Ritchson as the new CIA head who wants Dom’s head on a platter.  The movie really belongs to Momoa though.  I mean, when’s the last time we saw a villain giving one of his dead underlings a pedicure? 

Oh, and say what you want to about this movie, but about ten minutes into the flick, Rita Moreno drinks a Corona… so… family… I guess?

AKA:  Fast and Furious 10.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: AT MIDNIGHT I’LL TAKE YOUR SOUL (1964) ****

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Jose Mojica Marins directs and stars in the first Coffin Joe flick.  If you’ve never seen one of his movies, what the hell are you waiting for?  Viva, Coffin Joe!

Coffin Joe is the undertaker of a small town, and everyone lives in constant fear of him.  And for good reason, too.  If you don’t pay up at the poker table, he’ll cut your fingers off.  If you look at him sideways, he’ll horsewhip you in front of your friends.  It goes without saying being his girlfriend is a bum trip.  If you can’t produce an heir to extend his cursed bloodline, he’ll kill you and his best friend just so he can shack up with his new lady.  He also puts spiders on women, pokes people’s eyes out like a cross between Freddy Krueger and Moe from the Three Stooges and smashes a crown of thorns into a dude’s face. 

Needless to say, Joe has been building up a lot of bad karma.  Naturally, when an old gypsy woman puts a curse on him, he pays it no mind.  It doesn’t take long though for him to suffer the tortures of the damned. 

Wearing a top hat, cape, beard, and brandishing long nails, Coffin Joe cuts a memorable figure.  Marins portrays him to the hilt as he’s brimming with evil and boiling over with cruelty.  In short, Coffin Joe is a guy you love to hate.  It’s almost a shame he’s got to get his comeuppance.  Almost. 

As a director, Marins is one of the best in the business.  He gives us some memorable imagery that evokes the best of the old school Universal, Mexican monster, and Italian horror films.  The freakout scenes late in the picture are also a lot of fun and the scenes of Coffin Joe being a total bastard have a real kick to them. 

Incredibly enough, the sequels are even crazier, but this is the one that started it all. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: POCKET NINJAS (1997) ½ *

FORMAT:  DVD

This abysmal 3 Ninjas rip-off stars Gary Daniels as a karate instructor who moonlights as a masked vigilante.  He then bestows upon his three young students different colored masks so they too can go around at night and beat up muggers.  The Ninja trio then must take down a gang who have expanded their enterprise into dumping toxic waste. 

Pocket Ninjas was made in the post-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles era when any kid-friendly movie with the word “Ninja” in the title could be greenlit.  Even by the impossibly low standards of a dumb kids Ninja movie, this is atrocious.  Not only that, but it’s very disjointed and really dumb.  Apparently, it was started by Donald G. Jackson (which explains the rollerblading scenes) who was fired about halfway through production. Director Dave Eddy then took the reins and tried to cobble this mess together and salvage what he could.  I’d say he did a piss poor job, but then again, I don’t even know if Spielberg could’ve saved this turd.  Whenever the flick paints itself into a corner (which is often), it cuts to a random training montage which helps to further pad out the running time.  (Heck the term “training montage” is giving it way too much credit. Most of the time, it’s just a static shot of someone practicing Kung Fu.)  In fact, I’d say a third of the running time is devoted to the good guys and/or bad guys practicing Kung Fu.  The bitch of it is, none of them get particularly good at it.  (Random parade footage helps to further pad things out.)

I’m no expert, but I believe the scenes of Robert Z’Dar doing Three Stooges gags while punishing carnival music and comic relief slide whistle sound effects are on the soundtrack is a violation of the Geneva Convention.  Z’Dar is a lot of things, but a comedian he is not.  Seeing him doing shitty Curly impression is downright embarrassing.  Just when the movie should be over, the juvenile gang leader villain (who seems to be inspired by Robocop 2) challenges our heroes to a match in “Virtual Reality”, which is just a fancy word for more stupid fast motion comic relief fight scenes with Robert Z’Dar.  Even before that scene, I was like, "Game Over, man!"

AKA:  Triple Dragon.  AKA:  Skate Dragons.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE UNDERGROUND (1997) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

Jeff Fahey stars in this highly enjoyable PM action flick as a down and out detective investigating the murder of an up-and-coming rapper.  It seems he was gunned down in a club by men wearing Abraham Lincoln masks.  Naturally, Fahey’s partner winds up in the crosshairs during their latest attack and is murdered.  It’s then up to Jeff (who predictably gets saddled with a new partner) to get some payback. 

The Underground has a very loose and silly premise, but that’s part of its charm.  At first, it seems like it’s going to be a serious action movie riff on the real-life Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. beef.  However, we quickly learn that the rapper was killed not but a rival gangster rapper, but by (are you ready for this?) an evil disco band named The Las Vegas Disco Express who are furious that he sampled from their ‘70s disco song!   Incredible.  

Nowadays when sampling music is commonplace in the industry and interpolation is the rule rather than the exception in the music business, The Las Vegas Disco Express wouldn’t have to take such extreme measures.  Even if they were screwed over for royalties, all they’d have to do was hire a lawyer and sue, just like Marvin Gaye’s family did to Robin Thicke.  Then again, if they did that, we wouldn’t have a Jeff Fahey action movie, now would we?

The presence of an avenging disco band should be enough for anyone to want to see The Underground.  At the very least, it makes it stand out from the rest of the glut of late-‘90s actioners.  Heck, even the usually cliched aspects (Fahey avenging his dead partner, slowly growing to respect his new partner, dealing with his crumbling marriage, etc.) work better than expected and the action is as typically over the top as you would hope for from PM Entertainment. 

Fans of Fahey will no doubt enjoy this one.  Although he internalizes a lot of his rage, when he finally starts cracking skulls, he’s a lot of fun to watch.  In addition to Fahey, we have Kenneth (Lethal Weapon) Tigar as his ill-fated partner, Gregory Scott Cummings (Mac’s dad from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) memorably hamming things up as the ringleader of the avenging disco singers, and the great Brion James as Fahey’s captain.  Michael McFall is kind of grating as Fahey’s cocky new partner, but he does get some good lines, like when he arrests one of the Abe Lincolns and says, “You’re impeached, bitch!”

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: DARK WATERS (2003) **

FORMAT:  DVD

Lorenzo Lamas stars as an underwater explorer/grifter who is seeking donations to fund his expedition to the lost city of Atlantis.  Before he can skip town with the money, he is kidnapped by a rich rival who wants him to go to the bottom of the ocean to find out what happened at his top-secret underwater oil rig.  Turns out, a swarm of hungry Great White sharks are using the place for their new feeding ground.  Lamas soon finds himself in the midst of a government cover-up and has to evade not only federal agents on a sub, but also genetically engineered man-eating sharks. 

Dark Waters was directed by Phillip J. Roth, a veteran of many SyFy Channel movies and straight-up crap.  This one is far from his worst, but it might make for choppy waters if you aren’t a Lorenzo Lamas fan.  The opening underwater scenes are downright laughable as the actors are clearly on a set and trying unconvincingly to make the audience believe they’re on the ocean floor.  While this could’ve been a recipe for hokey fun, unfortunately, the majority of the film takes place on a sub and Lamas’ escape attempts quickly get repetitive. 

Lamas does at least deliver an amusing performance.  His hair is even better.  In fact, this might be the best his hair has looked since Renegade.  He’s pretty funny in this too.  I liked the scene where he has a three-way with some hot blondes, and his reaction to seeing a “security tape” that winds up being porn is a highlight. 

I guess it all boils down to what you’re looking for.  Dark Waters is essentially an action movie with some occasional shark attacks.  I was kind of hoping it was going to be a shark attack movie with some occasional action sequences.  However, if you don’t mind more action than shark munching, you might enjoy it more than I did. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE FARMER (1977) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Gary Conway makes a great entrance in The Farmer.  He’s riding on a passenger train and goes to get a drink at the bar.  When a black soldier is denied service, he intervenes.  A guy stands up and compares him to Shirley Temple, which leads Conway to say, “You made two mistakes.  One was standing up and two was making fun of Shirley Temple!” before starting an all-out brawl. 

The farmer returns home after World War II to the prospect of losing the family farm.  One night, he saves the life of a low-level gangster named Johnny (Michael Dante) who crashes his car on his property.  He repays the farmer’s kindness with a big wad of dough.  Later, when a top Mob boss blinds Johnny, he turns to the farmer to get revenge by promising him enough money to save his land.  When the gangsters rape his girlfriend, kill his best friend, and burn down his barn, the farmer finally goes out for revenge. 

The Farmer is a solid, tough, and mean revenge flick.  It kind of reminded me of a folksier version of Rolling Thunder.  While it’s not as over the top as some of the best genre entries (aside from the acid in the eyes scene), it’s effective, nevertheless.  

Conway (who made his debut playing the monster in I Was a Teenage Frankenstein) looks like the love child of Ross Hagen and Stacy Keach.  He makes for an intimidating presence in his aviators and fedora.  (He later went on to write Over the Top.)  Angel Tompkins is also quite good as his gangster moll turned love interest. 

Long considered potentially lost, The Farmer was MIA on home video for decades.  It was well worth the wait.  Scorpion Releasing’s Blu-Ray looks and sounds great and will make a fine addition to your collection if you’re a fan of revenge flicks.

AKA:  Blazing Revenge.

SEQUEL CATCH-UP: KILL AND KILL AGAIN (1981) ***

This month, I’ll be using the Sequel Catch-Up column to not only watch recent sequels that I’ve missed in the past year, but also older sequels that somehow have eluded me for years and years.  One such movie is Kill and Kill Again.  It’s the sequel to the highly enjoyable Kung Fu actioner, Kill or Be Killed and it offers up the same brand of lunacy that flick was known for. 

A professor comes up with a formula that can turn potatoes into fuel.  That’s not the crazy part.  It creates a byproduct that acts as a powerful mind control drug.  Naturally, the evil Marduk (Michael Mayer) kidnaps him and uses the drug to take over a town and turn the citizens into mind-controlled Kung Fu fighters.  The professor’s daughter, Kandy Kane (Anneline Kriel) hires Kung Fu champ Steve Chase (James Ryan) to rescue him.  Steve assembles a crack team of oddballs and loose cannons (who are kind of like a prototype version of The A-Team) to infiltrate the town and kick ass. 

Marduk makes for a memorable villain.  Not only does he have the fakest Castro beard you ever saw, he also has a funny pink-haired girlfriend (Marloe Scott Wilson) who embarrasses him by calling him pet names in front of his guards.  How does he expect to control a town if he can’t even stop his girlfriend from embarrassing him in front of the guys?  It’s just one of the many nutty touches that makes the film so endearing.

Those wanting a more “traditional” action flick will get that too.  There’s plenty of training montages, barroom brawls, and Kung Fu battles here.  In addition, the mix of tongue-in-cheek humor and out-and-out broad comedy works most of the type too.  (I liked the scene where the team’s poker game is interrupted by parachuting karate killers, and they keep the game going through the fight.)  All of this just adds to the affable goofball tone.  Ryan’s battle cry, which sounds like Bruce Lee by way of Speedy Gonzalez, is also good for a laugh every time he does it (which is often).  

Overall, I can’t say Kill and Kill Again is the classic Kill or Be Killed was, but it’s a silly and memorable slice of Kung Fu craziness.

Oh, and are you craving more Kung Fu reviews?  Fear not!  My latest book, Kung Fu Companion:  The Chopsocky Movie Guide will be out next month… Just in time for Valentine’s Day!  

AKA:  Thunder Warriors.  AKA:  Fighter Gang.