In short: Mission of Justice (1992)

This Jeff Wincott vehicle with Brigitte Nielsen as the film’s big bad is a highly commendable example of US low budget martial arts nonsense, seeing as it contains fight scenes as good as they get in US martial arts films, a lead in Wincott whose acting ability is actually present while still leaving him room for actually knowing about screen martial arts too, direction by Steve Barnett that never gets in the way of the film or of itself, and enough adorable stupid nonsense to put many smiles on my face. A personal highlight among the copious silliness is Brigitte’s plan to become mayor of Los Angeles by founding her own cult of violent male vigilantes roaming the streets in very tight shirts and jeans, all the while buying TV spots with the money she gets from the inheritance of grandmas her henchpeople murder. It also involves hiring a guy with anime hair as her election manager, which would even work if not for pesky Jeff Wincott and his ass-kicking ways. Additional joys consist of Karen Sheperd looking very angry and also kicking ass, electro torture, a short encounter with a police robot, a randomly mean police sergeant who seems to hate Wincott for knowing martial arts(!?), and perhaps the best use of a stolen boxing championship belt you will find in a movie.

This really only doesn’t get a longer write-up because I’m a) sick and won’t remember anything about the film once I’m fine again (future Denis now editing this really has only the vaguest clue what this write-up’s on about) and b) Mission of Justice isn’t quite crazy enough for me to rave about it for too long. That isn’t to say that Barnett’s film isn’t crazy enough to be a real joy to watch, though – for it surely is.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,martial arts,steve barnett,jeff wincott,brigitte nielsen,karen sheperd,matthias hues

In short: Cyborg 2: The Glass Shadow (1993)

In the future, two companies, one Japanese and one American, producing intelligent, feeling androids they call cyborgs for no good reason vie for world domination. Pinwheel, the American corp, decides to dominate their Japanese counterpart once and for all by blowing up the competition's executive level with a special cyborg explosive they have prepared their cyborg Casella "Cash" Reese (Angelina Jolie) with.

A quite independent cyborg (who actually is a cyborg and not an android like Cash) named Mercy (Jack Palance) who likes to communicate with the world via a negative image of his luscious lips on TVs lying around - and in this future, TVs are lying disused in the dust everywhere - has other plans for her, and pushes Cash and her martial arts instructor and owner of a big crush on his charge Colson "Colt" Ricks (Elias Koteas) into a daring escape attempt.

The bad guys send a crazy bounty killer (Billy Drago) and an equally crazy cyborg bounty killer (Karen Sheperd) after what will soon enough become the lovers, but as you know, love, kicks in the face and Cyborg-Palance conquer all.

Michael Schroeder's Cyborg 2 is a film that usually gets a bad rep as a horrible, horrible movie. I, however, somewhat emphatically disagree with that position, possibly because I just watched the film this isn't really a sequel of (even though there are a few seconds of random scenes from it inserted into this), and therefore know the difference between a boring low budget movie and one that is trying enthusiastically. Cyborg 2 is the kind of film Roger Corman could have produced in the late 70s if the late 70s had had a thing for somewhat cyberpunk-y futures. It's cheap, it's not as dumb as it pretends to be, and from time to time, it's even rather funny.

And really, what's not to like about a movie that contains: Jack Palance's lips chewing the scenery, and then Billy Drago and Karen Sheperd taking care of whatever he left of it, a young, pretty insecure and very cute Angelina Jolie (who does get naked, as does Koteas so there's nudity for everyone), copious amounts of blue, amber and red lighting, an arena fight below two ventilators, Jack Palance making things explode, cheap production and costume design that is either meant to suggest curious cultural crossovers in the future or a random grab into a wardrobe, and a story - such as it is - where love and an exploding Jack Palance cure all ills? Even better, all this stuff is told without too much boring filler and with a totally annoying synth soundtrack. If that doesn't make Cyborg 2 a winner in anyone's book, I don't want to read it.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,sf,angelina jolie,elias koteas,billy drago,jack palance,karen sheperd