LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SPOILER (1998) * ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Gary Daniels stars as the titular “Spoiler”, a convict that’s been dethawed from his cryo-prison.  Wrongly accused, convicted and incarcerated, he has a propensity for escaping, with the ultimate goal of seeing his daughter.  Naturally, every time he escapes, it adds more years to his sentence, and eventually his little girl ain’t so little anymore.  

Spoiler boasts a good supporting cast.  We have Bryan (Cold Harvest) Genesse as a bounty hunter, Meg (They Live) Foster as the warden, Arye (House 2) Gross as the “attendant” who thaws out the prisoners, Bruce (Diamonds are Forever) Glover as a priest, Duane (Pulp Fiction) Whitaker as a prison guard, Tony (Bad Santa) Cox as Daniels’ buddy, John (Jaws 3-D) Putch as a doctor, and Jeffrey (Re-Animator) Combs chewing the scenery as a cop.  It also has a plot that borrows freely from Demolition Man, Fortress, and Blade Runner, and even features scenes similar to Die Hard (like Daniels crawling around in a ventilation shaft). 

That is to say, it’s basically a mess.  Ultimately, Spoiler boils down to a long series of scenes of Gary escaping, being captured, escaping again, getting recaptured, and so on, and so on, and so on.  It doesn’t take long before all this becomes monotonous.  The scenes of Daniels kickboxing on sets of what look like remnants of old Roger Corman movies offer fleeting amusement, but the majority of the fights are indifferently staged and listlessly edited.  It’s also ugly looking to boot.  

The funny thing is that despite the turgid first hour and a half, the last five minutes come very close to working.  That’s mostly because Daniels commits to the potentially silly scene.  I won’t spoil… uh… Spoiler, but it’s a shame the last five minutes doesn’t come at the end of a better movie. 

Apparently, director Jeff (Leatherface:  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3) Burr took his name off the film when the producers started meddling in the editing room.  (The clunky editing is one of the film’s biggest shortcomings.)  I can’t say I blame him. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: AIR MARSHAL (2003) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Air Marshal is a straight-to-DVD action flick from the Nu Image “American Heroes” line.  It’s basically a slight variation on Passenger 57 for the Post-9/11 world.  Dean Cochran stars as a former Special Forces soldier-turned-air marshal who’s on a flight home to see his pregnant wife.  Of course, the plane is taken over by Arab terrorists.  There’s a shootout on the plane, and the marshal is presumed dead.  The dumb terrorists don’t realize he pulled the oldest trick in the book (wearing a bulletproof vest) and soon, he sets out to stop the terrorists, land the plane, and save the passengers. 

Dean Cochran is a perfectly acceptable C-list square jaw, action hero type.  He looks like the love child of Dean Cain and Paul Logan, which means he looks right at home in a second-rate Nu Image production.  Considering the low budget surroundings, his performance is about on par with everything else in the movie, which is to say, slightly better than you’d expect.  The only “star” in the movie is Jack Deth himself, Tim Thomerson, who plays a senator who is embarrassed by his daughter’s constant flirting with other passengers. 

Nu Image was working with a formula here and they follow it to the letter.  You can chart the history of airline action flicks like this one back to the disaster movies of the ‘70s (like Airport) all the way up to the actioners of the ‘90s (like Executive Decision).  Air Marshal doesn’t stray from the formula.  It checks off all the boxes and crosses off all the cliches in the book. 

It also delivers some unintentional laughs along the way.  The constant shots of the poorly CGI-ed plane are good for a chuckle and the emergency landing scene is pretty funny, which helps.  Overall, it makes for an OK night of braindead DTV cinema. 

AKA:  Air Marshals.

TEEN STEAM (1988) ****

When I was a kid, Alyssa Milano was one of my first big celebrity crushes.  With Teen Steam, I get to relive those golden years when she was one of the hottest teen stars in Hollywood.  

In the ‘80s it seemed like EVERY celebrity had their own workout video.  Teen Steam is Alyssa’s.  It begins with a music video of her singing the title tune in the studio while dancers strut in a fog-drenched alley.  Then we see her in her room talking to her friends on the phone.  They all want to release a little steam, so she invites them over for a workout.  (They magically appear moments later out of thin air.) 

Teen Steam has a good message:  Kids are under a lot of pressure, and they need to release energy in a positive way, like working out.  (“Teen steam… Gotta let it out!”)  It was also something of a family affair for the Milano clan.  Dad Tom wrote the music and mom Lin produced and was the hairstylist.  

The workout portions are good cheesy fun, and the banter between Alyssa and her friends is casual and spontaneous.  At one point, she cheerfully shouts, “Eat your heart out, Jane”, a clear, but playful jab at Jane Fonda and her workout video.  Alyssa also tries to be “hip” by performing a rap about toe raises.  (According to the credits, the rap was co-written by The Wonder Years’ Jason Hervey!)  I also thought it was funny that Alyssa doesn’t do some of the exercises but sits idly by and watches her friends do them.  Things take a turn for the kooky about halfway into the video when Alyssa walks through her bedroom mirror and winds up back in the music video where her and a bunch of teens dance.  She naturally returns back to her room for the finale where the video ends with stretching “cool down” exercises. 

This review is coming from a forty-five-year-old dude.  Not only am I a genuine fan of Milano, but also of the celebrity workout genre/phenomenon.  As a form of ‘80s video archeology, Teen Steam is quite a find.  If I saw this when it was released as a young man entering puberty, I would award this the highest rating imaginable.  Watching it now, it still remains a fun relic of a bygone era with just enough WTF moments to make it a must-see for fans of ‘80s cheese. 

AKA:  Alyssa Milano’s Teen Steam.  AKA:  Alyssa Milano:  Teen Steam.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SAFE HOUSE (2012) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Denzel Washington stars as Tobin Frost, an ex-CIA agent who has gone rouge.  He waltzes into an American consulate in South Africa and is immediately taken to a black site ran by green agent Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds).  When the safe house is stormed by gunmen looking to execute Frost, Weston has to take him on the run.  Naturally, they’ll have to learn to trust each other in order to survive. 

Safe House is the kind of movie Denzel would’ve made with Tony Scott if he was still with us.  Of course, Scott would’ve upped the ante on the action a bit, but director Daniel (Morbius) Espinosa does an OK job in that department.  If anything, it’s a good showcase for Washington, who gets to sink his teeth into a slightly more sinister version of his usual persona.  He also seems to be having fun playing off Reynolds, especially during the scenes where Denzel is getting into his head and playing mind games with him.  Reynolds seems to be a little out of his depth in a dramatic role, but that kind of works for his character.  He does get a good fight scene with Joel Kinnamon late in the flick though. 

The supporting cast is strong too. There’s a lot of scenes of Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, and Sam Shepard giving each other stern looks in the situation room.  These scenes could’ve been deadly dull, but the three of them all came ready to play.

My favorite part of the film was how Frost’s reputation preceded him.  Every time we walked into a room, someone would gasp, “My God, that’s Tobin Frost!”  It’s almost a shame he doesn’t do anything to live up to that reputation.

Overall, Safe House is pretty standard cloak and dagger fare.  It’s not gonna knock your socks off or anything, but it’s competently made and moderately entertaining.  It’s the sort of movie you’d watch on a long flight.  It’s diverting enough until you get where you’re going and promptly forgotten once you’re on your way. 

MITCH ONCE AGAIN APPEARS ON THE DTVC PODCAST

Matt from The DTVC Podcast invited me yet again to appear on the show.  This time we delved into Ghost Rider:  Spirit of Vengeance and discussed all things Nic Cage and Marvel.  It was a lot of fun, and I hope you guys and gals enjoy listening to it: DTVC Podcast 145, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" by DTVC Podcast (spotify.com)

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: STRIKE FORCE (2004) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

Strike Force opens with an action scene with such rapid-fire editing, I thought for a second it was the trailer for the movie and not the actual movie.  Now, there’s not nearly this much action in the rest of the film (the finale is a similarly rapid-fire affair), but it does set the tone nicely.  

It also has a pretty incredible cast.  In fact, neither the DVD box nor the opening credits even tell you some of the biggest names in the movie.  William Forsythe is front and center (and deservedly so), but there’s no mention of Ed Lauter, who plays the guy who gives Forsythe his mission.  There’s also Michael Parks (who basically appears in what nowadays would’ve been a Zoom call) as the guy who hires Forsythe.  Best yet, Burt Reynolds appears briefly as a character called “Irish” (although sometimes his accent sounds more Cuban).  None of these guys are advertised anywhere (even IMDb hides Burt as the last name in the credits), so it was fun whenever a great star unexpectedly showed up. 

Heck, even the stars that we know up front are in the movie are pretty sweet.  We have Daniel Bernhardt as Forsythe’s right-hand man, the Wishmaster himself, Andrew Divoff as the villain (who in one scene attends a luau wearing a Speedo while holding his dog), Mattias Hues as Divoff’s kickboxing champ, Christopher Atkins as one of Divoff’s slimy associates, and Erika Eleniak, who gets to prove she’s more than just arm candy as she has her own kickboxing scene.  The movie itself is solid, but the cast almost makes it more than a sum of its parts. 

I guess I should tell you about the plot.  Forsythe (who co-wrote and co-produced) is the leader of a team called “The Librarians” who specialize in extraction.  They are hired by Parks to go down to Miami to find a missing girl, and learn she’s run afoul of some white slavers led by Divoff. 

Strike Force feels like one of those “Action Pack” TV movies from the ‘90s, and I mean that as a sincere compliment.  It has a lot of guest stars, a simple plot, and solid action, all befitting a TV movie and/or pilot.  I also liked the subplot where Divoff holds underground kickboxing matches, which gives Bernhardt and Hues a chance to show their chops.  

The movie really belongs to Forsythe though.  He looks like he’s having fun in a rare hero leading role.  Seeing him playing off the spectacular list of co-stars doesn’t hurt either.   

AKA:  The Librarians.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: ALL MEN ARE APES! (1965) * ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

All Men are Apes! begins with some truly great opening narration:  “The film you are about to see concerns sex.  And why not?”  Too bad it’s all downhill from there. 

Diane (Steffi DePasse, in her first and only role) relates flashbacks from her prison cell and tells the audience how she wound up there.  It seems she banged her mother’s sailor boyfriend before becoming entangled with a manager who wanted to make her a stripper.  Soon, she’s headlining and leaves him for another guy, who turns out to be an abusive mobster type.  Eventually, Diane gets a job stripping with an ape as her second banana (no pun intended). 

All Men are Apes! was directed by Joseph P. Mawra, the man who gave the world the classic exploitation series of Olga movies.  Sadly, it’s sorely lacking the depravity and fun of those films.  It ultimately boils down to a bunch of off-kilter moments that are strung together with bitter sounding narration, and… well… it doesn’t add up to a whole lot. 

Most of the time, Mawra tosses padding on top of more padding, hoping that it will somehow stick, but unfortunately, none of it works, outside of a couple of goofy bits. The film flirts with coming alive during the long scene halfway through the film when Diane attends a wild party.  During this sequence, a masked “Peacock Girl” is auctioned off to the highest bidder, a woman is pelted with plums, and a belly dancer performs.  The would-be scintillating moments are tepid at best and aren’t much to write home about either.  I mean, I’m a fan of movies where guys in crappy ape suits cavort around with sexy women, but even this one was a bit of a struggle to get through.  (It doesn’t help that the ape doesn’t show up till the last five minutes.) 

Oh, and The Ink Spots (in what’s probably the lowest point of their career) are seen briefly performing in a strip club.