MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING (2025) **

The last Mission:  Impossible ended on a cliffhanger and was even titled Dead Reckoning Part One.  This sequel scrapped the “Part Two” and is just subtitled The Final Reckoning.  The only problem with that is that the last one, while entertaining, wasn’t exactly memorable.  So, going into it, I was kind of worried I was going to wrack my brain to remember what the hell happened in that one.  (The Christopher McQuarrie era of M:  I films have kind of started to run together for me.)  

The Final Reckoning anticipates this and gives us a bit of a refresher in the beginning.  (Ethan Hunt, once again played by Tom Cruise, has to stop a rogue AI from taking over the world.)  However, McQuarrie goes overboard with all the exposition dumps and needless flashbacks to the previous movies (and flashbacks to stuff we just saw ten minutes ago).  All this does is add to the already jaw-dropping run time.  (It’s nearly three hours.)  Shit, this could’ve been a three-parter.  The constant stream of exposition from scene to scene makes for an awfully clunky narrative and gets in the way of the fun.  In fact, the whole enterprise seems like a bet McQuarrie made to see how much exposition he can fit into a movie.  The answer is a shit ton. 

I hate AI as much as the next guy, but a faceless “Entity” doesn’t exactly make for a compelling villain for a long-running franchise.  It doesn’t help that it’s merely a thinly veiled stand-in for “Fake News” on the internet (“It wants us fighting each other!”) or that Esai Morales isn’t much of a human villain either.  I mean, everything Hunt has always tried to steal to the “Knock List” to the “Rabbit’s Foot” has simply been a McGuffin.  A plot device.  We don’t need to explain what it is.  We just need to know he has to get it to save the world.  This time out, the plan seems to be talking it to death. 

This definitely feels like the last one.  There are lots of references and clips from the previous adventures, although all that really does is eat up more screen time.  We also get dumb plot twist involving someone being related to a previous member of the team that just lands goofy. 

Maybe all my quibbles wouldn’t have amounted to much if the action was strong.  However, the gun fights and hand-to-hand stuff feel weak, and the big set pieces pale in comparison to the other installments.  I mean, in Rogue Nation, Cruise hung outside of a real jet.  In this one, he hangs off the side of a biplane.  Yes, the stunt is impressive, and I commend Tom’s desire to entertain audiences, but it just seems like a step backwards.  The series’ batting average has been strong till now and since this is the only real clunker in the franchise, I’d say it would be easy to forgive it if it hadn’t been so damn long. 

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to sit through nearly three hours of exposition in order to get to a few ho-hum action sequences that lack the kick of the franchise’s best work.  Judging by the mediocre box office, the series will probably self-destruct in five seconds. 

AKA:  Mission:  Impossible:  Dead Reckoning Part Two.

DEAFULA (1975) *** ½

Deafula is the first movie filmed in “Signscope” for deaf audiences.  Not content to be just a Dracula flick with the novelty of actors using sign language (don’t worry, there are narrators who translate for non-deaf audience members), the filmmakers have concocted a weird and arty flick that would be unique even if it didn’t feature characters signing.  (Well, except for the hunchback who doesn’t have hands.)  If you were thinking this was going to be a straight-up adaptation of Dracula, but with sign language, think again.  It’s an odd and unforgettable experience altogether. 

Steve (writer and co-director Peter Wechsberg, who kind of looks like a blonde Bob Seger) is a deeply religious son of a preacher man who had a deadly blood disease as a child which turned him into a vampire.  Years later, whenever Steve thirsts for blood, he transforms into a bloodsucker with a big fake nose and a Dracula cape.  The police are baffled, so they call on an expert from England who is convinced a vampire was responsible. 

It all sounds like a typical vampire movie, but Deafula is anything but.  Even without the signing, it would still make for an arty good time.  The black and white photography is dreamlike and there are several memorable touches.  Even the vampire attack scenes have an offbeat energy about them, and there’s at least one disturbing flashback sequence.  The fact that the filmmakers throw out much of the commonly accepted vampire lore (I mean Deafula is a priest!) adds to the anything-goes atmosphere. 

The only real debit is the anticlimactic ending.  If the film ended with Deafula’s battle with the real Count Dracula, it probably would’ve been a Four Star flick.  Unfortunately, it continues on about fifteen minutes too long and the heavily religious closing scene kind of takes the wind out of the movie’s sails. 

That said, this is a one-of-a-kind flick.  Vampire aficionados who think they’ve seen it all should check it out.  Fans of Obscure-O-Rama cinema will want to give it a look-see too. 

AKA:  Young Deafula.

THE RIDER OF THE SKULLS (1965) ***

I saw parts of this on the Something Weird compilation Mexican Monsters on the March and it looked pretty cool.  I found it online, so I figured I’d check it out.  The copy I saw didn’t have subtitles, but when has that ever stopped me from watching an old Mexican monster movie?

The basic premise is “The Rider”, who is essentially a mash-up of Zorro and one of the Three Amigos tangles with various monsters in the Old West.  It’s basically a stitched together feature from what looks to have been a TV show or a serial.  That means The Rider fights a new monster every twenty minutes or so, which is all right by me. 

A witch turns a poor guy into a werewolf who roams around killing people.  The witch also has the power to make zombies rise from their grave and talk.  The Rider, who wears a black mask, a wide brimmed hat, and a cool jacket with a skull and crossbones on it, does battle with the monster.  Later, he tries to save a woman who has been put under the spell of a vampire and even goes head to… uh… head with a headless horseman and some skull-faced monks (who look like a more badass version of the Crimson Skull).

The werewolf is basically just a guy in a shoddy Halloween mask but I for one wouldn’t have it any other way.   It is interesting that in the werewolf’s lap dissolve transformation scene that the guy first turns into a skeleton before becoming the werewolf.  That means it predates the similar (though much more elaborate) transformation in The Howling 4 by several decades.  I did think it was weird that bullets and knives don’t harm the wolf man, but he is killed when he (spoiler) falls off a cliff?!? 

The vampire is very cool too.  He’s basically just a dude with a creepy face (it looks like they put papier mache over a Lucha Libre mask), giant pointy ears, and a Dracula cape.  The jump cut transformation scenes when he turns into a bat are surprisingly effective. 

The headless horseman is shoddy looking.  And by “shoddy looking”, I mean “awesome”.  You know those headless costumes you see people wearing at Halloween parties?  Well, imagine a dime store South of the Border variation and that may give you an idea of what we have here.  (His talking severed head is cool too.)

The Rider has not one, but two sidekicks including a little kid and an old guy that provides the unnecessary (and unfunny) comic relief.  One or the other would’ve sufficed.  Heck, he really didn’t need either of them.  However, they don’t get in the way of the fun. 

Make no bones about it, The Rider of the Skulls is perfect entertainment for fans of Mexican monster movies. 

COVER UP (1991) **

The stars of The Punisher, Dolph Lundgren and Louis Gossett, Jr. reunited two years later for this dull and forgettable thriller.  Dolph plays a journalist who travels to Israel to do a story on an attack on an American naval base.  Seems the attack was just a cover for a theft of a deadly nerve gas the U.S. was hiding there.  Dolph’s best friend is blamed for the theft and when he is killed, it looks like Dolph will be next. 

I know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (up), but Dolph is sorely miscast as a reporter.  I know in real life he’s got a degree in chemical engineering and speaks a mess of languages, but he just looks out of his depth in this movie.  He does what he can, all things considered.  It’s just kind of hard to buy him as a cigar chomping newspaperman.  It is a little amusing that they have to give him a military background to explain his size and ass-kicking capabilities. 

The supporting cast is solid.  Gossett is good and is one of the few actors that seem to be able to realistically intimidate Dolph.  Lisa Berkeley is also quite strong as Dolph’s old flame.  Incredibly enough, this was her only role which is shocking because she has a lot of screen presence. 

Directed by Manny (Dr. Giggles) Coto, Cover Up is rather pedestrian.  It’s slow to start and it doesn’t help that it lands more on the espionage/conspiracy side of the action fence.  We eventually get some car chases and fight scenes, but they are a long time coming.  Once we finally do get around to them, they aren’t exactly worth writing home about.  (The abrupt ending doesn’t help much either.)  Aside from one funny bit involving a concierge at a ratty hotel, it’s pretty much by the numbers in every regard. 

FINDERS KEEPERS, LOVERS WEEPERS! (1968) ***

Paul (Paul Lockwood) is the owner of a topless go-go club.  Whenever he isn’t tying one on, he’s busy cheating on his wife Kelly (Anne Chapman from The Blue Hour) with a series of sexy sex workers.  Meanwhile, a plot brews to knock over the club.   While Kelly is busy making time with Ray (Gordon Wescourt), the stud bartender, thieves enter the bar with the intention of ripping the joint off, which further complicates matters. 

The opening scenes of Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers! are pure Russ Meyer.  It contains his patented rapid-fire editing as he juxtaposes fast cars with hot and busty go-go girls.  The credits sequence set in the bar, where the names of the cast and crew appear on liquor bottles is also fun, and the theme song is a real toe-tapper too. 

The oddest scene finds a hooker insisting on shaving Paul (if you know what I mean) before doing the deed.  She then flashes back to her days as a young Mennonite flying a kite in a field just as she reaches her climax.  (Meyer’s cutaways to an erupting fountain in the next sex scene is a bit more conventional.) 

Chapman is dynamite, and it’s a shame she only made one film with Meyer as she definitely understood the assignment.  Meyer loved using impossibly busty actresses for his films and not only can she act, but she’s also impossibly busty.  In fact, I’d even say she was overqualified for the role, if you catch my drift.  She gets a great underwater fuck scene too. (This one features cutaways to a demolition derby.)

The melodrama is a bit lacking in comparison to Meyer’s other stuff at the time.  It’s an overall smaller movie that’s also missing some of the sheer exuberance that hallmarks his best work.  With a director like Russ, whose cinematic vision is so singular, the only competition he really has is himself.  Compared to other directors’ output at the time it’s breezy fun.  When judged against his filmography, it comes up a bit short.  Don’t take that as a knock against it as Finders Keepers, Lovers Weeper! is still an enjoyable flick and a terrific vehicle for Chapman.  

ON HER BED OF ROSES (1966) **

In 1966, director Albert Zugsmith made a one-two punch of sexploitation films that purported to be based on academic books about sex.  Both On Her Bed of Roses and The Incredible Sex Revolution feature much of the same cast.  (Although Hampton Fancher and Alex D’Arcy are noticeably absent in this one.)  Neither are peculiarly good, and both go on far too long (both clock in at over a hundred minutes), but I would give this one the edge if only for the strong central performance by Sandra Lynn. 

On Her Bed of Roses is supposedly adapted from Psychedelic Sexualis, “The book that shocked the world!”  (Do you have your copy?)  As with Revolution, Dr. Lee Gladden appears although this time, he’s not playing himself. 

A nut named Stephen (Ronald Warren) snaps, grabs a rifle, and starts picking off people at random on a busy street.  When the cops close in, he turns the gun on himself.  Meanwhile, his girlfriend Melissa (Lynn) relates flashbacks to her shrink (Gladden) about her problems.  Seems she’s a nymphomaniac with severe daddy issues.  She takes to the awkward and shy Stephen, mostly because he is the first guy who never made a pass at her.  After his kill spree, Melissa winds up blaming herself for the ordeal, although the doctor tries to make her see that’s not the case. 

The opening is long winded and ultimately seems like a gross exploitation of ‘50s mass murderers like Charles Whitman.  It’s totally unnecessary and gets the movie off on the wrong foot.  Fortunately, things improve once Lynn shows up, even if the scenes with Gladden in his office tend to drag. 

The highlight is the long party scene that appears smack dab in the middle of the action.  It features scads of T & A, including topless dancing, topless canoodling, topless pillow fights, and Pat Barrington doing a topless belly dance.  It all culminates in an underwater catfight between Lynn and Lovey Song.  Sadly, unbridled fun like this is sorely lacking elsewhere in the picture. 

AKA:  Psychedelic Sexualis.  AKA:  Psychopathia Sexualis.  

PRIMATE (2026) *** ½

January is known as “Dump Month” in Hollywood.  It is a time when studios spring their less desirable product on unsuspecting moviegoers.  Most times, these movies get lost in the shuffle from all the holiday holdover films and wannabe Oscar bait that clogs up the theater that time of year.  However, Dump Month has given us some unadulterated classics in the past few years.  M3GAN, The Beekeeper, and Companion have all been January releases and all of them have been modern classics.  The trend continues with the enormously entertaining and gleefully gory Primate. 

This is essentially Congo Meets Cujo.  A group of friends gather at a ritzy house in Hawaii for a party.  Tragically, their pet chimpanzee contracts rabies and terrorizes the partygoers.  The survivors then hop into the swimming pool and try to wait out the crafty killer chimp. 

Director Johannes Roberts has made swimmers being terrorized a subgenre unto itself with his previous films Strangers:  Prey at Night and the 47 Meters Down franchise.  He cribs from the same playbook here as a big chunk of the movie takes place in the pool.  Fortunately, things never become too stale as the ladies find (sometimes stupid, sometimes not) reasons to hop out of the pool and tangle with the murderous monkey. 

It’s a little slow to start, but once the chimp goes ape (so to speak), Roberts delivers some fine gore sequences.  Faces are torn off, legs are chomped on, hair is ripped from its roots, and heads are crushed.  The standout scene is truly… shall we say… jaw dropping. 

As far as When Animals Attack movies go, this is a darn good one.  It features likable characters, some stylish moments, a cool John Carpenter-inspired score, gnarly gore, and a handful of genuinely suspenseful sequences.  Overall, it’s a highly enjoyable bit of monkey business. 

I can’t wait to see what next January has in store for us.