LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SAFETY IN NUMBERS (2006) * ½

FORMAT:  DVD

You know you’re in trouble when the title appears twice in the opening credits. 

Past contestants of a reality TV show called “Survivor Island” (which is kind of like a cross between Survivor and The Bachelor) return to the deserted tropical island locale of the show for what they think is a reunion special.  Once they arrive, the contestants find an ominous message scrawled in blood stating they will all die.  Naturally, the idiots stick around.  They should’ve known something was wrong the minute they realized there were no producers, cameramen, or other crew members on the island and turned back.  Then again, like I said, they’re idiots.  After a long while, the former contestants begin being picked off one by one by an unseen killer.  Is the killer the psycho who was kicked off the show before the season finale?  Or is the murderer one of the contestants?

Safety in Numbers is yet another horror flick using reality TV as a gimmick.  I have a low tolerance for these things, especially when everyone speaks in annoying Australian accents.  You also have to put up with a lot of shaky-cam footage of the killer filming his victims from the woods.  Oh, and one of the annoying would-be victims also carries around a video camera and films everything, which makes us root for him to die first. 

The big problem with Safety in Numbers is that it takes about half the movie before people start dying.  Until then, you’ve got to sit through a lot of annoying scenes of people arguing and acting like assholes.  You know, just like your average reality show. 

It's not all bad though.  I liked that the killer dispatched his victims using traps that look like something out of an ‘80s cannibal movie.  However, most of the kills occur offscreen and the ending is extremely frustrating. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE HEIST (2001) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Luke Perry and Ice-T star in this moderately entertaining crime thriller from writer/director Kurt Voss, the man who was also responsible for the excellent Poison Ivy:  The New Seduction. 

Ice-T stars as a thief named “C-Note”, who along with his crew, robs an armored car and takes office worker Lucy (Amy Locane) hostage.  They make the mistake of hiding out in a warehouse where a homeless musician named Moe (Richmond Arquette) and his junkie brother Jack (Perry) are squatting.  The brothers then get the less than brilliant idea to rip off the thieves, even though they themselves are far from criminal masterminds.  Naturally, double and triple crosses ensue on both sides. 

As the title suggests, The Heist is a fairly generic crime picture.  It’s sort of like a variation on Trespass which also starred Ice-T, except with money instead of gold.  It’s a lean, mean, meat and potatoes thriller that benefits from a claustrophobic setting as it takes place mainly in one location.  If the script had another draft, or if the action was choreographed a tad better, we might’ve been talking *** here.  As it is, it’s close, but no cigar.

Sure, it’s by the numbers, but The Heist is well-paced, and the cast is solid.  Perry is amusingly cast against type as the twitchy, opportunistic junkie.  He probably had a lot of fun attempting to shed his Beverly Hills 90210 image.  Ice-T on the other hand has no qualms playing up his typical Ice-T screen persona as he is arrogant, authoritative, and badass.  He also gets a couple of funny lines.  When he sees the armored car for the first time, he says, “This is an ATM… and we’re gonna make a withdrawal!”  Locane does what she can with her underwritten hostage part and Married with Children’s David Faustino also appears in a supporting role as a member of a rival crew.  I never thought I’d live to see the day when Bud Bundy and Ice-T got into a Mexican standoff, but here we are. 

AKA:  Shot Down.

SEQUEL CATCH-UP: HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1964) *** ½

It’s been a while since I watched a Hercules flick.  It’s also been ages since I watched a Mario Bava movie.  Heck, I can’t even remember the last Christopher Lee film I saw.  Because of that, I decided to watch Hercules in the Haunted World.  What better way to kill three birds with one cinematic stone? 

Reg Park stars as Hercules in this sequel to Hercules and the Captive Women.  Herc returns home from a quest to find his true love in a trancelike state.  The only way to wake her from her slumber is to journey into the underworld and retrieve a magic apple.  Of course, evil Christopher Lee isn’t about to let that happen. 

Since it’s a Mario Bava movie, Hercules and the Haunted World is brimming with beautiful colors and gorgeous compositions.  Most Italian peplum suffer from an ugly, washed-out, half-assed Technicolor look.  This one is often quite visually stunning.  It’s also funny hearing Lee’s unmistakable voice being dubbed by someone else.  (He’s also dubbed in Italian during the opening scene that no one bothered to translate into English.)  Oh, and because it’s a Bava and/or Lee movie, it inexplicably turns into a vampire flick in the third act.  That’s just another way of saying it’s awesome. 

Most Hercules movies of the era have their moments but wear out their welcome fast.  Hercules in the Haunted World gives us a glimpse at what a Hercules flick would look like with a cinematic genius like Bava at the helm.  Sure, Hercules still does all the things you’d want to see him do in a Hercules picture.  He performs tremendous feats of strength, falls asleep at inopportune times, and beats up a lot of guys in togas.  However, this one also gives us shit like Herc tangling with a rock monster and fighting a horde of flying zombies, which I have to say is right up my alley.  

In short, this is the best Hercules movie ever made. 

AKA:  Hercules vs. the Vampire.  AKA:  The Vampires vs. Hercules.  AKA:  With Hercules to the Center of the Earth.  AKA:  Sword and Sandal.  AKA:  Hercules in the Center of the Earth.

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!”