The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

Starring: Sean Connery

Plot Summary: Superheroes from the great works of literature fight evil.

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The strength of Sean Connery is his ability to lift a movie out of mediocrity with his sheer will. Without Sir Sean, The Untouchables would have been a drier version of Waterworld. Without Sir Sean, The Rock would have been Con Air. Without Sir Sean, James Bond would have been Roger Moore. In a tour de force, the man decided to carry an ensemble cast whose combined age is roughly equal to his. The result was the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:

Mina Harker: (Bram Stoker's Dracula) The wife of vampire hunter Jonathan Harker, bitten by Dracula himself, Mina has all of the powers of a vampire except the evilness.



Dorian Gray: (Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray) In addition to the legendary dry wit he gained from his creator, Dorian is indestructible, since his picture not only ages but takes bullet wounds for him.



Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde: (H.G. Wells) Dr. Jekyll can take a potion and become the ultrapowerful Mr. Hyde via a series of quick morphs and flash powder explosions.



Tom Sawyer: (Rush's Moving Pictures album) Tom managed to rise from semi-literate petty criminal to US Marshall, and is now operating well out of jurisdiction in Europe. A skilled marksman, he also is adept at tricking people into whitewashing fences.



Captain Nemo: (Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) An Eastern potentate turned pirate, Nemo has achieved the rare dual mastery of engineering and swordfighting.



The Invisible Man: (H.G. Wells) Cockney thief and comic relief Rodney Skinner lifted the formula off the more unfortunate scientist in the eponymous novel. Luckily avoiding the psychosis suffered by the original Invisible Man or by Kevin Bacon, this Invisible Man offers unrivaled stealth to the League.



Allan Quatermain: (H. Rider Haggard) Clearly needing no introduction, Sir Sean plays the most famous hunter/explorer Englishman in all of literary history. There is not a schoolboy on this earth who has not thrilled to the adventures of this sharpshooter, or at least seen Jumanji.


Though studio executives take some heat for being cold, emotionless, money-counting machines, they did make a smart calculation on the League. Since most of the characters hail from English, Scots, and Irish works (and even one French), they felt it needed to be Americanized a little so that people in Ohio would care about the film. It worked for The Great Escape. This explains the introduction of Tom Sawyer and the casting of Naseerudin Shah as Captain Nemo. Naseerudin Shah is of course the Bollywood equivalent of Kids in the Hall actor Kevin McDonald. Granted, Kevin is Canadian, but it's close enough.

The movie opens with a series of heists and abductions in turn of the century Europe by an army of heavily armored tanks and troops, led by the masked Fantom. He is stealing plans and kidnapping scientists as per Chapter 3 in the Supervillian Handbook. In response, a mysterious Englishman begins rounding up literary characters for the League. He is known only as M because apparently the Bond franchise couldn't copyright a single letter, and is played by a Richard Roxburgh who was Dracula in Van Helsing and the Duke in Moulin Rouge. Not that he's evil.

A reluctant Sir Sean is brought back to England from his Kenyan estate after a small detachment of the Fantom's troops attempts to assassinate him. Sir Sean is still not particularly interested in returning to the mother country, but after his home is more or less totaled as a result of the attack he has no place else to go. This clever plot device allows Sir Sean to be brought into the League and at the same time be a bit of a dick towards the team and England in general.

M briefs the team on the Fantom's next scheme: disrupt the world summit meeting in Venice by triggering an underground explosion. The League must get there on Nemo's Nautilus, a gargantuan submarine about half the size of London. The Nautilus is later revealed to be solar powered - an unusual feature on a submarine.

The League sets off for Venice from London. Despite the remarkable speeds that the enormous solar-powered sub is capable of, it still takes a couple days to get there. At this point any of your typical coward directors would make a jump cut to Venice and get back into the action, but not Stephen Norrington. The director of Blade knows that there is no such thing as downtime in a movie, so he uses the trip to establish the characters. And what better way to establish characters than through amateur psychology? Nemo provides some unwanted analysis on Sir Sean, comparing him to an old lion for some reason. Sir Sean offers to give Tom lessons in marksmanship and the inferiority of America, and in return Tom psychoanalyzes Sir Sean some more. Mina analyzes Dorian. Nemo analyzes Dr. Jekyll, and vice versa. Then Mr. Hyde starts talking to Dr. Jekyll and they analyze themselves. Finally the disappearance of one of Dr. Jekyll's vials turns suspicion on the Invisible Man and the movie kicks back into high gear. Dr. Jekyll accuses the Invisible Man, who promptly disappears until the third act.

At long last the team arrives in Venice, just in time for the Fantom's explosives to detonate beneath one building. Venice begins to topple, as each tipped-over building pushes over the next in a ring of destruction emanating from the initial blast. This tragedy could have been avoided had the builders of Venice not made the foundations very weak while making the buildings themselves infinitely strong. Luckily, the Nautilus fires a missile at a key building in the path of destruction and they manage to end the dominos without too many thousands of casualties.

It is at this point that they learn the needlessly elaborate and poorly explained attack on Venice was nothing more than a red herring. Sir Sean makes the discovery while locked in combat with the Fantom, when the mask falls off to reveal that he is really M. Back at the ship, the rest of the team is tipped off when Dorian kills a crewmember and hijacks the ship. He and M make off in the Nautilus' escape pod, and the remaining members of the League file back into the ship to determine the reason for the betrayal.

A phonograph is left behind to provide necessary exposition and character motivation. The League is nothing more than a myth. It never existed, not even the earlier incarnations such as the characters of Jane Austen novels that defeated a ruthless opium syndicate with witty social commentary. M concocted the League to lure them together and steal the essence of their powers - blood from Mina, the potions from the Invisible Man and Dr. Jekyll, and the blueprints for the Nautilus. All seems lost. Especially when the recording reveals that a subsonic frequency embedded on the LP has armed a series of explosives in the now-flooded engine room.

Fortune shines on the League, however, when Dr. Jekyll manages to drink his potion, become Hyde, swim into the engine room, and disarm the bombs without going into a homicidal rage and killing the rest of the crew. Then they pick up a tapping sound on the sonar, a Morse code message from the Invisible Man, stowed away in the escape pod. He gives them a rough bearing to follow and promises to meet up again in the third act.

The Invisible Man's coordinates send the League to M's Mongolian fortress. From the looks of the flares atop the numerous towers, it also doubles as an oil refinery. The Invisible Man returns with a full reconnaissance report. The fortress is actually a highly advanced laboratory staffed by kidnapped scientists forced to make clones of the League members (at least the League members with superhuman abilities not granted by evil portraits). Even the Nautilus is being cloned 8 times over in a drydock 4 times the size of London.

The League uses the time-honored infiltration tactic of walking up to the front gates and killing the guards. Once inside, the Invisible Man starts setting explosives throughout the complex, Mina hunts down Dorian, Nemo and Dr. Jekyll free the scientists, and Sir Sean and Tom go looking for M.

The climax of the movie takes place under a rare three-ring action sequence. Mina challenges Dorian to a swordfight like in Highlander except each of them heal from their wounds instantaneously, until Mina finds Dorian's picture and shows it to him which for some reason causes him to age like the Nazi in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Tom fights a crazy flamethrower guy like from Lethal Weapon 4, but since he has the Invisible Man helping him out, he doesn't require Danny Glover to dance around in his underwear to get a shot at the fuel tank. Nemo and Jekyll are attacked by a henchman who downs an entire batch of generic Hyde formula to become a cross between the Visible Steroid Man and a giant angry raspberry. He nearly kills both of them, but the explosives start going off and he gets caught in the rubble. Nemo and Jekyll give their heartfelt thanks to the Invisible Man for timing the explosives such that everyone would still be in the fortress when they started to go off.

Meanwhile, M reveals to Sir Sean that he is in reality Professor Moriarty. That way the two of them can dispense with the silly codename business. Sir Sean chases him through what seems like a half dozen attic rooms filled with random trinkets and boxes, until he finally corners the Sherlock Holmes archvillain. Right before he can fire, Moriarty brings Sir Sean's attention to Tom, who is being held at knifepoint by one of the cloned Invisible Men. While Sir Sean kills the Other Invisible Man, Moriarty stabs Sir Sean in the chest and makes his escape through the open window. He survives the 200-foot drop thanks to wind resistance from his cape, and starts running across the frozen tundra to his escape vehicle.

Tom grabs his rifle and runs to the window. Taking a moment to collect his breath and remember the lessons Sir Sean gave him, he quickly runs the ballistics calculations for a 1.5-mile rifle shot through a driving snowstorm, and cleans up Sherlock Holmes' mess with a single bullet. He returns to Sir Sean's side, who tells Tom with his dying breath "May this new century be yours, son, as the old one was mine," thus passing the torch of global colonial oppression from Britain to America.

We fade to Kenya where the League stands respectfully over Sir Sean's grave. Nemo offers the Nautilus to the remaining members of the League to tour the world fighting crime without Sir Sean, carrying on like Creedence Clearwater Revisited or The Other Ones but hopefully not sucking as bad.

I would have to say that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen.

Mr. Murder (1998)

Starring:
Stephen Baldwin
Stephen Baldwin
Thomas Haden Church

Special Appearance:
James Coburn

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I'm sure you've all played the icebreaker game known as Name Your Favorite Baldwin, but for me there's simply no debating it. After his breakout roles in The Usual Suspects and Bio-Dome, Stephen Baldwin has been held higher in my esteem than his more critically acclaimed brothers. Sometimes I wish all the Baldwins were Stephen Baldwins. Thus explains the appeal of the made-for-TV thriller Mr. Murder, which features Stephen Baldwin in a dual role. Veteran TV movie director Dick Lowry (Y2K, Atomic Train, Project ALF) handles this adaptation of a Dean Koontz novel.

The opening credits fade into one of the more dank high school swimming pools in movie history. Drew Oslett Jr., the son of Oslett Technologies CEO Drew Oslett Sr., watches a young man swim some laps. Drew is played by Thomas Haden Church, or as he will be forever known - Sideways or no Sideways - Lowell from Wings. Lowell establishes himself as evil by standing in the shadows while wearing a trenchcoat. The young swimmer might be a future Olympian, but instead he is destined to become the victim of a murder designed to look like a freak shower-electrocution accident.

The accident is staged to get a blood sample from the kid in order to clone an army of super soldiers. Why they didn't just jab him in the ass unexpectedly with a needle isn't clear, since it worked so well in Innerspace. The added layer of complexity proves problematic when on the same night, famed horror fiction writer Marty Stillwater (Stephen Baldwin, of course) finds himself in the hospital for a blood test on the same night. The two vials are mixed up during an all too common intern-juggling-test-tubes-in-a-vain-attempt-to-impress-another-intern incident, and the wrong man is cloned. One would expect that the mix-up would become very obvious, but Lowell attributes the different appearance of the prototype, named Alfie, to the extensive genetic engineering that Alfie underwent to become a more efficient killing machine.

These changes include the following: increased endurance, increased strength, decreased time to reach maturity, docile obedience, near-instantaneous healing, and psychic abilities. Wanting to maintain an aura of scientific plausibility, Koontz supplies explanations for the more questionable genetic upgrades. The near-instantaneous healing requires a large input of food to supply the energy to regenerate damaged tissue, and does not work for head injuries. The psychic powers derive from genes believed to be associated with ESP, presumably obtained by jabbing John Edward in the ass with a needle. The John Edward gene is shown to be a success at Alfie's birth. At the exact moment the cord is cut, Stephen doubles over, feeling intense pain right in the old umbilical cord.

In order to maintain complete control over the genetically engineered supersoldier, Lowell subjects Alfie to a rigorously controlled environment and constant psychological conditioning. Lowell is referred to as "Father," Alfie is told to "be at peace" when he becomes agitated, confused, squeamish, regretful, or exhibits any sort of emotion really. The result is that Alfie is a completely amoral killing machine that frightens everybody involved in the project. Drew Oslett Sr. (James Coburn) is so disturbed by the project that he orders it shut down. The casting of Mr. Coburn as a "special appearance" is a matter of some pride for the filmmakers, since he is a veteran of The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, and In Like Flint in the 1960s, and more recently, Snow Dogs. The stature and experience that Mr. Coburn carries allows him to make a significant contribution to the film despite only appearing in about four scenes.

Lowell refuses to end the project, however, and sets up his own facilities complete with his own evil board of directors. After a handful of years, Alfie has reached full maturity and is carrying out assassinations against military strongmen around the world. In appearance Alfie is about thirtyish and is played by Stephen Baldwin in evil mode. The youth of his character, the lack of any social experience, and the constant psychological conditioning means that evil Stephen Baldwin speaks in the slow cadence of a simpleton. The conflict of good Stephen Baldwin against evil Stephen Baldwin is something like Michael McManus from Usual Suspects versus Doyle Johnson from Bio-Dome.

The showdown is set in motion thanks to evil Stephen Baldwin's ESP gene. It seems to be a receiver/transmitter, because both Stephen Baldwins get visions from each other's lives. Good Stephen Baldwin blacks out and sees flashes of Third World locales, and concludes that he is going insane due to a brain tumor. It is revealed that he is a hypochondriac, which sadly means that initially no one will believe him when he says that he is being pursued by his evil genetically enhanced clone. Evil Stephen Baldwin sees bits and pieces of good Stephen Baldwin's family life in a more controlled fashion, since he is the one with the ESP gene. He concludes that his lack of memories indicates that he has been kidnapped, brainwashed, and replaced with a look-alike. In a heroic rejection of his conditioning, evil Stephen Baldwin sets off to kill good Stephen Baldwin and "reclaim" his family. It's sort of like The Corsican Brothers except evil.

The quest is aided by good Stephen Baldwin's fame as a nutjob horror writer. In addition to the hypochondria, good Stephen Baldwin owns a couple dozen pairs of the same green shirt and same blue jeans and never wears anything else. His horror titles include "Deadly by Twilight" and "Taste for Death," so presumably people won't notice when his doppelganger shows up talking like a retard. I guess it's true: you are at your best when you write what you know.

Evil Stephen Baldwin finds a magazine article on him, kills some guy for his car after explaining politely in excruciating detail why he needs it, and drives to "his" California home. Along the way he finds the tracking device that Lowell implanted in the heel of his shoe. The shoe may seem like a poor choice of location on Lowell's part as opposed to, say, evil Stephen Baldwin's ass, but you must remember that Lowell is a huge Maxwell Smart fan.

We cut good Stephen Baldwin alone at home making lunch before his doctor's appointment. As evil Stephen Baldwin closes in distance, the psychic connection grows stronger, similar to electromagnetic radiation. Good Stephen Baldwin is frightened by a clear vision of evil Stephen Baldwin and leaves immediately for the doctor without even touching his lunch.

Moments later evil Stephen Baldwin breaks into the house, changes into the standard good Stephen Baldwin uniform, and proving that nothing is sacred in this chilling tale, eats half of the man's sandwich. Evil Stephen Baldwin wanders into the study and tries to write. Being retarded, he can't string together two sentences even after trying the usual cures for writer's block: a beer and putting his fist through the monitor. He looks down to the gashes on his hand just in time to watch them quickly seal up. He's pretty much Wolverine without claws.

Good Stephen Baldwin becomes very confused when he gets home. He doesn't remember eating the sandwich, he doesn't remember busting up the monitor and getting blood everywhere, and he certainly doesn't remember having an identical twin in the house pointing a gun at him. After some quick thinking, good Stephen Baldwin turns on the stereo via remote and evil Stephen Baldwin turns around and starts shooting wildly at the speakers. Good Stephen Baldwin takes the initiative and bumrushes him. Then in a fight that covers every room in the house, good Stephen Baldwin defeats his genetically engineered trained assassin clone in hand to hand combat, knocking him over the second-floor railing onto a glass coffee table. Good Stephen Baldwin then violates the first rule of fighting a crazy lookalike, which is shoot him in the head repeatedly. Instead he walks away to call the cops and evil Stephen Baldwin scampers off.

Having lost five pints of blood, evil Stephen Baldwin needs to replenish the lost energy and materials. He does so at a local drive-thru, after explaining in excruciating detail to the customer in front of him how his body is engineered to operate. Meanwhile, the cops are suspicious of good Stephen Baldwin's account of the struggle, since they found all that blood but no body. They believe it is all a publicity stunt with fake blood, not realizing that science has created a clone that can replace five pints of blood by eating a plate of French fries. Furthermore, they only find one set of prints on the gun, which goes to show how good the cloning process is since twins with the same DNA don't even have the same fingerprints.

About this time news of the two or three people the evil Stephen Baldwin killed on route to California hits town, and as we now know, the fingerprints match good Stephen Baldwin perfectly. So the family goes on the run to good Stephen Baldwin's parent's isolated cabin in the woods. Evil Stephen Baldwin, in search of "his" parents, arrive at their house moments before good Stephen Baldwin leaves a message detailing where they're headed and which routes they are planning on taking just in case anyone overhearing may want to set up an ambush.

Lowell's evil board of directors finally realizes that their super soldier looks exactly like a world-famous author. They are able to determine that the family is en route to the isolated cabin because that's just what families do in this type of movie. Lowell enters full damage control mode, and sets off for the cabin to kill good Stephen Baldwin and his family then retrieve evil Stephen Baldwin for reconditioning and possibly a shock collar implant in his ass. When James Coburn, wracked with guilt, confesses to a senator (coincidentally also a member of the evil board), Lowell dispatches the Jump to Conclusions guy from Office Space (Richard Riehle) to assassinate him.

The FBI comes to the conclusion that good Stephen Baldwin has in fact gone insane and abducted his family to the isolated cabin, since their cases typically end up at isolated cabins. They organize a SWAT team to kill him and save the family. Harkening back to the second Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1960s, every character in the film not already dead is set on a collision course with horror and wackiness, and it warrants recognition for just how difficult it is to do both so well.

The only thing missing from the madcap chase finale is the mistaken identity. This is handled when the family stops in for gas halfway to the isolated cabin and good Stephen Baldwin visits the bathroom around back. Following his psychic link, evil Stephen Baldwin stops and tries to find him. Good Stephen Baldwin gets out of the bathroom and runs right into Lowell who coincidentally was also stopping for gas. Good Stephen Baldwin starts talking like a retard and convinces Lowell that he is in fact evil Stephen Baldwin, and they drive off together. Evil Stephen Baldwin walks around looking for good Stephen Baldwin and instead finds good Stephen Baldwin's daughter, who drags him back to the car.

The family notices something is wrong when evil Stephen Baldwin announces at dinner, "I'm hungry," and starts shoveling food into his mouth like a crazy person. Lowell notices something is wrong when good Stephen Baldwin forces him to crash the car, takes his gun, steals his Palm, and pistolwhips him down an embankment. His wife sneaks out of the cabin under cover of darkness with a shotgun and the kids. Good Stephen Baldwin comes up to the cabin at the same moment, but flashes his wedding ring and talks like a normal person to convince them. By now evil Stephen Baldwin has noticed the escape and grabs a handy rifle, which apparently has a really bad sight because the trained sniper misses good Stephen Baldwin with three shots at twenty yards. The family makes it into the SUV and drives off, but evil Stephen Baldwin shoots out the rear tire and they are unable to drive on a flat or it will void the lease. It is at this moment that Dean Koontz shows a great respect for movie convention by having good Stephen Baldwin yell, "We'll go hide out in the mill!"

After a long and tense game of hide and go seek in the mill, evil Stephen Baldwin finds the girls. Good Stephen Baldwin drops down on top of him from a handy walkway and the elder daughter picks up the gun. Having seen this type of situation in film before, she asks them a question only her dad would know. Good Stephen Baldwin sees that Lowell is lurking behind the girls, and figuring him for a quicker shot than his daughter, he answers incorrectly. When she says no, Lowell shoots evil Stephen Baldwin, mistakenly thinking he is good Stephen Baldwin. He then turns the gun on the girls to tidy up, but evil Stephen Baldwin in a dash of parental instinct rises up and pushes Lowell through the wall. Evil Stephen Baldwin follows through and joins him in the five-story drop, which happens to be enough to crack his head open; his Achilles' skull if you will. Good Stephen Baldwin and the kids look out over the edge just in time to see evil Stephen Baldwin die, and then slowly but surely evaporate into nothingness. That is some damn fine genetic engineering.

Good Stephen Baldwin is left with the Palm but doesn't know the password. He was able to see over Lowell's shoulder on the car ride up well enough to know that the password has six letters and starts with an F. And although he knows that Lowell had evil Stephen Baldwin call him "Father," he is not privy to the knowledge that the audience has about his Oedipal issues. Luckily, his six-year-old daughter is on hand to tell him the obvious answer, and he types in Father. This is why I implore all of my readers to choose alphanumeric passwords rather than words describing their deep-seated psychological problems.

So the family decides to hightail it to Mexico and transmit the information on the Palm to the world, clearing good Stephen Baldwin's name. Concerned about the SWAT members swarming over the mill, the eldest daughter begins whistling the family theme song, "King of the Road," in an inspiring if poorly timed gesture. And in order to appease the audience's worries that with the FBI looking for the family it might be hard to sneak across the border, we fade into the epilogue showing the four of them 18 months later on a boat off the coast of Australia listening to a radio report on the top secret cloning project.

I would have to say that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen.

Radical Jack (2000)

Starring: Billy Ray Cyrus

Plot Summary: Billy Ray Cyrus is an ex-CIA agent who must bring down the arms dealer that killed his family. Yes, that Billy Ray Cyrus.

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In between Achy Breaky Heart and his three year run as Doc Cassidy on the PAX series "Doc," Billy Ray Cyrus went to Hollywood. There he made one film: Radical Jack. In it he plays the titular Jack, former agent with the CIA and current long-haired drifter. During the opening sequence, Billy Ray viciously attacks the first three people that speak to him, indicating that he is a complicated man with a troubled past. We learn that the people are CIA agents working for Billy Ray's old commander Dex (action genre veteran Paul Schnabel). Dex tells Billy Ray that the arms dealer Riotti (Benny Nieves, previously best known as Big Guy #2 in The Devil's Advocate) is rumored to be setting up a deal in the nearby small town of Hope. Dex needs Billy Ray to track down Riotti because (a) Billy Ray is the only one to ever meet Riotti, and (b) Riotti double-crossed Billy Ray when he was working deep undercover, killing Billy Ray's wife and young daughter, thus allowing Billy Ray to seek bloody, bloody revenge.

Billy Ray reluctantly agrees to help Dex, and after a briefing montage sets off in his Jeep for Hope. He takes a job as a bartender from the quiet, well-meaning Ollie (Brian Smiar), and starts to settle down and get a feel for the town. At the same time, we start to learn more about his character. We learn at the laundromat that he can't look at a young child without having a sepia-tinged flashback of his own daughter. We learn after a brief carpentry montage that he was a former Navy Seal in the first Gulf War. And we learn from his fluffy mullet that you can take Billy Ray Cyrus out of the early-90s country scene, but you can't take the early-90s country scene out of Billy Ray Cyrus.

Meanwhile, we also meet the natives of Hope, 50% of whom are evil or closely affiliated with evil. At the head is Lloyd (George "Buck" Flower, finally given a chance to play sober after multiple roles with "Drunk" or "Bum" in the character's name), gruff elder statesman of the Buckworth crime family, who is orchestrating the arms deal. His son, Rolland (Noah Blake, son of Robert), wants to take over for his father after the exchange, but in the meantime amuses himself by leading a gang of local punks and beating his girlfriend, Kate (Dedee Pfeiffer of the Pfeiffer stable of actresses). She breaks up with him in the opening sequence, and then decides to hang around the same small town as her psychotically jealous ex-boyfriend while flirting with any new man that walks into the bar where she waitresses.

Kate throws herself at Billy Ray on his first night at work, which Billy Ray tries to use to make contact with the Buckworth crime family. Rolland obliges by starting a fight with him. As top local badass, he feels he is more than a match for a Navy Seal. The two go outside, followed by most of the adult population of Hope. Rolland and a friend try to team up on Billy Ray, but he quickly dispatches the nameless henchman. Now an ordinary film may follow this by having the villain pull a knife on the hero, but in Radical Jack, Rolland pulls a butterfly knife on Billy Ray. The butterfly knife, underutilized in film, takes the poetry of nunchuks (or for purists, nunchaku), but gives it a simple steel blade to make it less confusing and Asian. Billy Ray sends Rolland and his fancy knife packing. The town celebrates the victory, declaring Billy Ray to be the Seven Samurai, Magnificent Seven, and Three Amigos all rolled into one. Kate, proving that nothing turns on chicks more than senseless violence, immediately puts the moves on Billy Ray. Due to an unfortunate combination of Billy Ray still mourning his wife and Kate's inability to read body language, Kate makes out with Billy Ray's cheek for a good minute before sensing the awkwardness and relenting.

In keeping with the no-nonsense philosophy of the film, the plot's third and fourth acts are crammed down our throats to allow us time to savor the thrilling climax. In approximate order, Rolland runs Kate off the road in his Hummer (the official vehicle of evil) to reconcile with/threaten violence upon her. She moves in with co-waitress Becky (Cassie Branham in the second and final film of her short but bright career) for safety, company, and to double up on the eye candy. Becky informs Kate that she once dated Rolland, broke up with him when she realized he was insane, but kept it secret under fear of violence, going to show once again that all women want their best friends dead. Billy Ray wanders right into an ambush by Rolland and a dozen of his top thugs, which proves to be just enough men to savagely beat Billy Ray within an inch of his life. Kate checks him out of the hospital to hide him from Rolland, nurse him back to health, and try to get on him one more time. Rolland breaks into the house while Kate and Becky are at work, but Billy Ray is able to crash out of bed onto the floor, grunt loudly with pain, and slide under the bed where Rolland is unable to find him. Becky shamelessly throws herself at him again, and is again shot down by the troubled, and interested, but mostly troubled Billy Ray. He is rehabilitated just in time for the arms deal with Riotti, thus setting up the thrilling climax.

Set in an old airplane hangar, the arms are bought not with suitcases full of cash, but with a wire transfer. This more realistic exchange might have sacrificed some of the drama of the deal if not for the tense series of cellphone calls by Riotti to authorize the transfer and then by Rolland to confirm the transfer. Kate drives up to talk to Rolland, but it turns out to be a clever ruse to allow Billy Ray to sneak in and confront Riotti. Instead of carrying guns, Billy Ray holds a live grenade in each hand, threatening to take out Riotti with him, and refuting the critics who claimed Billy Ray couldn't play crazy.

In the confusion, Rolland is finally able to summon up the Oedipal courage to shoot his father and take over the business, as well as the more run-of-the-mill misogynistic courage to take Kate hostage. Billy Ray tosses the grenades, wiping out several henchmen from both sides of the deal, then pulls out a gun, finishing off several more, including what appears to be Jerry Garcia's stunt double from The Grateful Dead Movie. Then, in flagrant contradiction to Navy Seal training, Billy Ray stands out in the open for a while so he can be shot in the shoulder by Rolland. Then Rolland savors the moment out in the open long enough to be shot in the back by Kate, which is more understandable since he's an idiot. Riotti, still hiding amongst the crates of arms, snatches Kate and holds her at knifepoint, ten feet away from a Navy Seal with a gun. Billy Ray shoots Riotti in the head, but in deference to Kate's safety, he does so without closing his eyes first.

Dex and the CIA team storm onto the scene and inform Billy Ray that it was all a setup. Dex was behind the double-cross to cover the evidence of his crooked deals with Riotti. Now that the last links to his past have been cut, Dex orders Billy Ray and Kate executed and wanders off to revel in his evilness. Billy Ray's last request is to kiss Kate, and in the embrace he whispers that he has a gun stashed in his ass crack. She reaches down to his pants, grabs the gun, and takes out Dex's team with three shots. Billy Ray then uses himself as bait to lure Dex out into the open so Kate can finish him off too.

Having finally killed enough people to purge the demons of his wife and daughter's deaths, Billy Ray has healed enough to see that Kate has the decency, caring, hotness, and marksmanship that he can truly love. Together they drive out of the town of Hope, knowing that they've made life safe again for the dozen or so surviving residents. I would have to say that Radical Jack is the greatest movie I have ever seen.

Freejack (1992)

Starring:
Emilio Estevez
Mick Jagger
Rene Russo
Buster Poindexter
Anthony Hopkins

Plot summary: Emilio Estevez is trapped in the future and on the run from Mick Jagger. Luckily he has Buster Poindexter to protect him.

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Ringo Starr had the Magic Christian, John Denver had Oh God! You Devil, David Bowie had Labyrinth, but as of 1991 Mick Jagger had nothing. He was so big that Don McLean was convinced he was the devil, but Mick could not land a role in a major movie. Cruelly passed over for A Clockwork Orange, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Amadeus, Sir Mick Jagger did not even receive so much as a cameo in Jumpin' Jack Flash. But in 1992 he finally earned his star turn, coincidentally with fellow future knight Sir Anthony Hopkins. Mick shares the screen with Buster Poindexter, and it's not even a musical. Rounding out the all-star cast are the simultaneously intimidating and alluring Rene Russo and Emilio Estevez, the thinking man's Charlie Sheen.

The premise to Freejack is that in the near future mankind has developed technology store the brains of recently deceased individuals in a supercomputer known as the Spiritual Switchboard and then download (or is it upload?) the contents of those brains into young healthy bodies, thus ensuring immortality for a price. Unfortunately, environmental decay has ruined the health of the general population, which as you may imagine promotes the development of technology to transport people from the past to supply the unsullied bodies. In order to both obtain the correct coordinates for the transfer and prevent chaos in the past, the future technicians locate people who died in spectacular and well-documented ways, and snatch them moments before their demise. As you might expect, 90% of these body donors are racecar drivers. This is bad news for Emilio Estevez's character Alex Furlong, a young F-1 racer who is doomed to be saved from a fiery death only to find himself pursued through a nightmarish futureworld by Mick Jagger.

Geoff Murphy (veteran of Young Guns II) tackles the directorial challenge of telling a time travel story by setting up both time frames simultaneously. He alternates shots between the present-day Long Island track where Emilio is setting up for his fateful race and the future Long Island where Mick Jagger's Victor Vacendak - a "bonejacker" in the parlance of the times - is driving a heavily armored convoy to collect the body. Geoff cuts back and forth every three seconds in order to maximize audience disorientation so as to allow us to empathize with Emilio's plight.

We are able to establish the following: Emilio's love interest Julie Redlund (Rene) and Emilio's agent Brad Carter (Buster) are waiting for his big race, and Mick is escorting an armored cleanroom filled with Mylar-bunny-suit-clad bonejackers waiting for his big crash. The two timelines converge when Emilio locks tires with another car, launching his car up into an overpass and his body into Mick's armored cleanroom. The bonejackers attempt to prepare his body for the mind transfer by wrapping him in the world's largest piece of Saran Wrap and lobotomizing him with what appears to be an arc welder, but the convoy is ambushed by a local gang armed with rocket launchers, and in the chaos Emilio is able to escape.

On the run in a poorly lit, run down section of Manhattan wearing a blue and gold jumpsuit, Emilio finds himself in The Fugitive set in the original Batman movie at a Johnny Mnemonic technological level with a certain Escape From New York flavor. People refuse to help him, not want to risk being caught harboring a "freejack," or escaped body donor. Finally he breaks into a church where he meets a foulmouthed nun played by Amanda Plummer, who would parlay this role into Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction three years later. She gives him non-neon-colored clothing, some food, a gun, and some needed exposition. Many of his friends are dead or missing, Rene if alive is unlisted, and only Buster can be found.

Emilio tracks down Buster, who lives in the bad part of nightmarish future New York. He finds an older, crazier, more heavily armed man than he remembered, but it's his agent all the same. Buster takes him into his apartment and supplies more exposition. This includes the whereabouts of Rene - an executive vice president at the McCandless Corporation, which by sinister coincidence is the same company that performs the mind transfer operations. More importantly to Emilio, Buster mentions that Rene is still single. Buster also complains that he was never able to collect on Emilio's insurance. The insurance company refused to pay out Emilio's policy because no body was found, presumably over concerns that Emilio was actually transported to the future moments before death for use by a recently deceased billionaire, which was not covered in Emilio's policy.

Buster goes on to advise Emilio to "look like him" in order to blend, but Emilio is too polite to ask for a shovel with which to beat himself in the face. Buster leads the way to a diner to grab some lunch and to turn Emilio in for the reward money. Emilio, bless his heart, is stunned to find out that his agent betrayed him for money. The cops are armed with weapons that combine the stun capability of a Taser with the look, firepower, and accuracy of the blasters used by the Empire in Star Wars. Luckily, the cops were not informed that there was an exit in the back of the diner, and Emilio eludes them in a motorcycle chase through several alleyways and buildings.

Rene meanwhile is negotiating a business deal with the Japanese alongside fellow executive Mark Michelette, played by Jonathan Banks, the bad guy from Beverly Hills Cop, Crocodile Dundee in LA, and Flipper. In this film he is allowed to stretch from mere evil caricature to morally ambiguous slimeball. Rene concludes the deal after some bickering with Mark, and is driven home in what appears to be the car from Sleeper. She finds Emilio standing in her high security apartment, and promptly suffers a nervous breakdown. Not because her dead ex-boyfriend has resurfaced looking the same age as twenty years ago, but because she believes him to have already received the mind transfer. He convinces her of his identity by recounting events from the precredits sequence, at which point she realizes that mayhaps a fugitive walking right into a high security building is a setup. She forces him out of the building moments before Mick shows up driving a candy apple red amphibious assault vehicle that might be made by the future equivalent of the Tonka Corporation. Emilio is able to hijack an equally comical champagne truck and begins the chase sequence of the incredibly awkward vehicles. Mick hacks into the champagne truck's navigational computer and uses it to heckle Emilio via the video monitor. But thanks to the surprisingly agile handling of the champagne truck and his years of racing experience, Emilio is able to evade Mick until he is forced to jump over the side of a bridge from the truck at 60 mph. Years of experience with auto crashes helps Emilio survive the entry into the water at terminal velocity.

Meanwhile, Mark is trying to track down Emilio as well. He drags the nun into his office and interrogates her. Unsatisfied with the details she was able to provide, he slaps her, presumably because there were no puppies on hand to eat. On her way out, the nun gives him a swift kick in the balls, which proves that no matter what the year, some things never change.

Rene tracks down Emilio and the two build some sexual tension. Rene says no, but the swelling jazz score says yes. Ordinarily, time travel movies cause difficulties for romance, but in this case Rene is still as hot as she was 20 years ago, foreshadowing her own movie career. She calls her boss, Ian McCandless (the always pleasant Anthony Hopkins) to try and sort out the mess. Some would say that Anthony is underused in the film, but I maintain that he was good enough to let this be Emilio and Mick's picture. Anthony empathizes, but the confidentiality agreements are so strict that not even he knows the mind that has purchased Emilio's body. He advises Rene to let go of Emilio since he has no legal standing.

At the last minute Anthony relents, offering Emilio his boat for an escape. Emilio buys it, even though Anthony still has residual evil dripping from his teeth after his role in Silence of the Lambs. Rene drops him off, but refuses to go with him. Emilio has difficulty wrapping his head around the 18-years-passing thing, but eventually gives up. Rene gives him the same good luck charm she handed him before his would-have-been-fatal car crash, and sends him to the boat, where he is promptly ambushed by Mick's bonejackers, who in turn are ambushed by a group of heavily armed winos with no clear political affiliation.

In the confusion Emilio hides out in a warehouse and enters a deadly game of cat and mouse with Mick. Suddenly one of the winos charges Mick, but Emilio picks him off. Mick removes his helmet and asks Emilio why he saved his life. Emilio has his gun trained on Mick and begins interrogating him about who bought his body. Mick refuses to answer, and Emilio immediately gives up. Overcome by the decency of a man who came from a much, much simpler time, Mick changes his mind about the bonejacker-client privilege and reveals that Anthony himself holds the reservation for Emilio's body. Then, in gratitude for being spared by Emilio, Mick gives him a five minute headstart, covers his eyes, and begins counting Mississippis. Emilio is understandably confused that an Englishman would count Mississippis rather than something like hippopotamus, but runs offscreen before the fourth Mississippi.

Emilio makes it outside only to find another Tonka Assault Vehicle bearing down on him. In a clever nod to the Dragnet remake from five years' prior, the hatch opens and Rene pops out. Emilio hops in, calls up Mark, and pretends to take Rene hostage. Mark promises him safe passage to his office to negotiate. Emilio buys it, but in his defense, there was no reason for him not to trust the second in command for the man who wants to steal his body at the corporation that specializes in stealing people's bodies.

While Mick's team traces the call and begins pursuit, Emilio and Rene enter the McCandless Building and after a very tense escalator-riding sequence, find themselves facing twenty heavily armed security guards wearing bright blue jumpsuits. The future appears to be very big on primary colors. They allow him into the elevator to meet Mark, who immediately insists that they drop the "absurd pantomime." Emilio is initially stunned by the depth of Mark's vocabulary, but realizes that Mark has access to the file footage of Rene and him together at the race track.

At this stage Mark cements his role as chief villain by launching into an exhaustive description of his role in the plot. Anthony has been dead for three days, his mind uploaded (or is it downloaded?) into the Spiritual Switchboard. He has been communicating with Rene from beyond the grave for the duration of the film, proving once again that a dead Anthony Hopkins is superior to most living actors. Mark plans on denying a new body to Anthony so that he can take over the company after Anthony's signal degrades past recoverability. He was behind the convoy attack in the first act, as well as the ambush by Team Wino. Professing no ill will towards Emilio, he asks them both to simply leave the city and never return.

As they leave, he fires Rene. She, forgetting the twenty heavily armed security guards waiting for them in the lobby, slaps him. Emilio, also forgetting the guards, laughs at him. Mark promptly orders their death. The elevator opens to a firing squad in neon blue, but Rene and Emilio are saved by a deus ex Jagger, whose team of bonejackers surprise the guards from behind. The elevator door slams shut and forces them both up into the top floor of the building and the Spiritual Switchboard. A series of computer animations with a "2001: Space Odyssey in an office building" kind of feel takes them to Anthony, who explains in a heartfelt speech that he has always loved Rene and decided taking Emilio's body was the only way to make her love him. It's sweet in a John Hinckley Jr. sort of way.

After messing with Emilio's head to stall for time, Mick arrives and forces Emilio onto a machine that appears to be built from a Van de Graaff generator, a giant anemometer, the shard from the Dark Crystal, and the Quantum Leap accelerator. Small bolts of lightning start firing from the machine and Anthony's mind starts to transfer to Emilio's body. A series of tight face shots of both actors are interspersed with a montage of clips from the movie, but before the process finishes, Mark storms into the room. In the confusion Rene grabs a gun and destroys the Dark Crystal shard. Mark tries to fire Mick, but Emilio stands up and claims to be Anthony. Mick decides to settle the issue by asking for Anthony's PIN, which only Mick knows. Emilio thinks and thinks and says as dramatically as possible: "6." Mick says he's right, and then tells him to continue, launching into a death game of Price is Right. Emilio gets through the numbers, Mick is convinced, and shoots Mark for attempted preemptive murder.

We close on a shot of Emilio and Rene hopping into Anthony's company car and driving off. Mick is waiting for them at a roadblock, and informs Emilio that Anthony couldn't drive and he should be more careful. With a smile that could only be described as impish, he reveals that he lied about the PIN, which just goes to that it's not a hard choice between shooting Emilio Estevez or the bad guy from Flipper.

As Rene and Emilio drive off into the pollution-enhanced sunset, the stirring chords of "Hit Between the Eyes" by the Scorpions take over and we fade out on a future made less nightmarish thanks to the future Sir Mick Jagger.

I would have to say that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen.

A View to a Kill (1985)

Starring:
Christopher Walken
Roger Moore

Plot Summary: Christopher Walken is a Bond villain. I don't mean he plays one, I mean he IS one.

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Disclaimer: With all due respect to Sir Roger Moore, I can't bring myself to call him James Bond. There will be only one James Bond, and that man is George Lazenby. George brought to the role a solid reliability, almost wooden in strength, and no one else will ever compare.

We open with Roger pulling a microchip off a corpse half-buried in a Siberian glacier. Spotted by a significant portion of the Soviet army, the getaway quickly becomes the modern biathlon of downhill skiing and automatic rifles. Just when the action threatens to get stale, Roger juryrigs a makeshift snowboard and races down the glacier to the tune of the Beach Boys' "California Girls." Twenty years later, the sequence is still as fresh and hip as it was then. Roger escapes in a camouflaged submarine piloted by one Kimberly Jones, played by former Miss World Mary Stavin. To give some sense of the depth of the Bond Girl casting for this film, the producers had a Miss World on hand just to waste on the precredits sequence. They didn't even bother with a double entendre character name. The mind boggles.

After Roger's first sexual conquest, we are free to enjoy the credits sequence. The usual bevy of shadow-obscured naked women provide the backdrop, but for this movie they are lit entirely with blacklights wearing fluorescent paint on their hands and faces. This was intended to deflect any criticisms that Bond credits sequences are too erotic. Duran Duran provides the theme song of the same name in so as to avoid any confusion as to which decade the movie was filmed in.

Once back in England, Roger is briefed by M (Robert Brown as always) on the results of the mission. It would seem that the Soviets have obtained a copy of the UK's new EMP-proof microchip which would make them invulnerable to the casts of both Goldeneye and the Ocean's Eleven remake. They suspect Max Zorin, who in a long proud tradition of vaguely menacing Bond villains is a "leading French industrialist," champion horse breeder, and the sole survivor of a German wartime eugenics experiment to produce highly intelligent children that was cut short because of psychological problems in the subjects.

Zorin is portrayed by the incomparable Christopher Walken (in one of his rare non-dancing roles), whose presence alone makes the film ten times better than all the Sean Connery movies combined. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a man alive in 1985 better suited to play a psychotic Nazi experimental superbaby than Christopher Walken. Embracing the villain role, he dyed his hair blonde and combed it straight back making him 30% crazier looking. He is always with May Day, the most physically intimidating henchman since Jaws. Played by Grace Jones sporting some kind of Wooly Wally hairdo that is in a different shape for each scene and could well be a wig made of modeling clay, May Day is Christopher's personal bodyguard in charge of making him look normal by comparison. The two are lovers as well, which proves once again that black or white, freaky loves freaky.

Roger meets with a man investigating Christopher named Aubergine (played by genuine Frenchman Jean Rougerie) at a swanky Paris club whose headline act features a girl whistling while butterflies on fishing line are dangled from offstage. I suppose I could make a Jerry Lewis comment here, but I feel that is beneath me. May Day replaces one of the danglers and swings a poisoned butterfly into Aubergine's neck, presumably to make it look like a horrible butterfly show accident. Roger spots her and follows her through the back door.

The chase goes up and down the Eiffel Tower (May Day had the presence of mind to wear her basejumping equipment), through the Paris streets (Roger jacks a taxicab and proceeds to lose the roof and back half of the car in successive collisions, but in a tribute to French engineering, is able to pilot the car on the front two wheels alone), and into the Seine, where May Day escapes to Christopher's speedboat where they share a tender maniacal laugh together.

In order to get closer to Christopher, Sir Godfrey provides Roger with an invitation to a horse auction on Christopher's estate. Patrick Macnee, who portrays Sir Godfrey, rose through the fictional British spy ranks during his decade-long service in the Avengers. Roger meets another of Christopher's female bodyguards, except this one is the unambiguously female Jenny Flex (played by future Indiana Jones Nazi Alison Doody). Never out of her equestrian outfit, she and Roger exchange half-hearted double entendres about riding. Surprisingly, she is the only female presence in the movie that Roger does not sleep with. Roger also meets one Stacey Sutton, played by Tanya Roberts of Sheena and Beastmaster fame, a mysterious American who receives a $5,000,000 check from Christopher for an undisclosed reason.

As an aside, to those who think that the ideals of the Bond franchise died out in the 1960s, this places a Miss World, Conan the Barbarian sidekick, Aryan archaeologist, and a hot blonde Dr. Dolittle in the same film. You cannot deny the power of Bond.

At this stage we finally enjoy the meeting of Roger and Christopher. The director builds suspense by making us wait through almost half of the film to finally hear the magic that is the Christopher Walken cadence, which I can only describe as Shatneresque except cool. When you combine this rhythm with the dialogue of the typical Bond villain, it should become clear why this film is so dear to my heart.

In light of the late meeting, Roger accelerates their relationship by immediately tipping his hand regarding the assassination of Aubergine so that Christopher can start planning his murder right away. Roger follows that up by seducing May Day, which proves his bravery since he must have known there was only about a 1 in 3 chance that Roger would be the man in that encounter.

Sir Godfrey is sent to town to contact M, but only makes it as far as the carwash before being killed by May Day, Clemenza-style from the back seat. Roger on the other hand keeps his morning meeting with Christopher, who advises him "You need a stallion" which may not look good typed out, but trust me, the intonation is worth the cost of the rental alone. He then orchestrates an attempt to kill Roger first with a test ride of a horse named Inferno hopped up on steroids and possibly LSD on a steeplechase against extras from Ben Hur, and then by the more "old-school" method of clubbing him, putting him into a car, and pushing it into a lake.

After Roger escapes by breathing the air in the tires, he returns to HQ for recovery and we take a short break to establish the main plotline. Christopher is confronted by some Russian thugs and we learn that he is actually a rogue KGB agent. He tells off his former commanders and leaves in his company blimp for San Francisco with a consortium of European chipmakers. In exchange for somehow disposing of their competition in Silicon Valley, Christopher proposes to extort ludicrous licensing fees from them.

Roger is able to make up the two week headstart he gave Christopher by taking an airplane. He investigates Christopher's business in the San Francisco Bay, starting with an oil rig along the Hayward Fault. The rig has been retrofitted to pump large amounts of water into the well, which only confuses Roger until he happens upon Stacey Sutton from the first act at city hall. Always the gentleman, he stalks her back to her house in the countryside and breaks in. She is initially offended and gestures menacingly at him with a shotgun, but goons from Christopher's company interrupt the moment. Roger earns her trust by killing or maiming most of them, and she reveals her role in the picture. Part owner of the oil rig, she has been fending off takeover bids from Christopher, including the five million. When Roger explains Christopher's new scheme, Stacey exclaims that it could unleash an earthquake.

And if Christopher is worthy of the Bond villain mantle, it will be an earthquake of absurd proportions. Roger and Stacey infiltrate Christopher's other major investment in the region: an abandoned mine on the San Andreas Fault. There they find that Christopher has apparently bought all of the C-4 in the Western Hemisphere and dumped it in a few strategic points along the fault. The explosions would cleave the rock separating the Hayward Fault from the San Andreas while releasing the contents of the reservoir directly overhead into both faults, thus triggering a simultaneous double earthquake that would submerge the entire Silicon Valley under a tidal wave. This is possible because of science. Thus, as long as no one connects the nuclear-weapon-scale explosions and the gaping holes in the ground to the earthquake, Christopher will be in the clear. Even if they do, no one's going to mess with a man who has access to a semi-infinite supply of C-4.

But just to make sure, after he sets the timer on the detonator, Christopher breaks for the exit, floods the mine with everyone still in it and laughs joyfully as he opens fire on the workers as they try and run to safety. After sunning in the brilliant evil of his plan, he makes his way to the escape blimp. Meanwhile, on the other side of the mine, Roger and Stacey have been spotted by May Day. The two find a vent shaft and Roger, proving that chivalry is not dead, barrels ahead of Stacey. She gets snagged by May Day, at which point Roger valiantly comes back for her. In the process of freeing her, he and May Day fall into the half-flooded mine at which point May Day realizes she has been abandoned to die.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but it cannot even conceive of fury like Grace Jones scorned. May Day and Roger join forces to stop the explosion. Because the system cannot be defused, they have to remove the detonator from the mine. Together they hoist the detonator onto a rail car, but May Day has to ride on the car to keep the hand brake from catching. Once she is safely outside the mine, she remains on the rail car because she is a giant nut job.

Ordinarily Roger would stroll over to the nearest phone and call in the Air Force, or really even the RAF, to chase down Christopher and his getaway blimp. Sadly, while Stacey is wandering above ground, she manages to get abducted by Christopher, making her the first person in movie history to be snuck up on by a blimp. This forces Roger to follow them by grabbing onto the mooring rope. Christopher decides against drowning him in the Pacific, and instead crashes him and the blimp into one of the towers on the Golden Gate Bridge for a dramatic fight atop the main cable. Christopher initially has the advantage since he has a small fireman's axe and Roger only has his dry English wit, but it ends with Christopher falling from the top of the bridge. He dies as he lived: laughing maniacally. Roger for his troubles gets a commendation, a short vacation, and a chance to sleep with Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.

I would have to say that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen.

Kull the Conqueror (1997)

Starring:
Kevin Sorbo
Tia Carrere
Harvey Fierstein

Plot Summary: Arnold Schwarzenegger is back, and this time he's Kevin Sorbo!

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The late 1990s are remembered today as the Age of the Scantily Clad Medieval Warrior. Hercules and Xena dominated the cable television landscape, and the big screen created a household name in Kull the Conqueror. John Nicolella of Miami Vice and Melrose Place fame directs a broadsword-and-hard-rock fusion piece that would someday claim A Knight's Tale in its heritage.

Kevin Sorbo, in between Hercules and Andromeda, stars as the title character Kull, an axe-wielding barbarian. We open on a vast battle featuring flaming torches and nondescript heavy metal music. It seems to be a half-naked Sorbo single-handedly fighting a small army, but we quickly learn that Sorbo is in fact trying to prove himself worthy to join the Royal Guard of Valusia. Apparently the kingdom holds an open tryout day. General Taligaro, played by a Thomas Ian Griffith best known for being the bad guy in Karate Kid III, accepts Sorbo's application and hands him a sword - the only weapon worthy of the Royal Guard.

Almost immediately a messenger arrives at the battle arena to give word that the king has gone full-tilt wacko and has been slaughtering the heirs to the throne. Sorbo joins the rush to the palace, and eventually fatally wounds the king, portrayed by Sven-Ole Thorsen, who holds the honor of appearing in no fewer than eleven Arnold Schwarzenegger films. King Nutjob I, fulfilling an ancient Valusian prophecy that whoever puts the sword in the king shall be king, gives the crown to Sorbo.

This legally-binding transfer of power displeases the two heirs that survived the massacre, General Taligaro and Ducalon, a weasely nobleman played by noted weasely actor Douglas Henshall. They pledge loyalty to the King Sorbo, then hurry off to plan his death. An assassination attempt fails at the coronation when their would-be assassin begins his war cry way too early considering he was rushing at King Sorbo with a sword.

Meanwhile, King Sorbo recognizes a former fortune-teller in his harem, the lovely and talented Zareta, played by the oddly-accented Karina Lombard. She reads his fortune for him and then resists his advances with passive-aggressive boredom. King Sorbo for his part tries to explain that he wants his women to be willing while trying to force himself on her. The uncomfortably awkward romantic scene ends with Zareta storming off and King Sorbo left with no companionship except the other twenty harem girls.

Frustrated by Zareta, King Sorbo tries to free the slaves of the kingdom and establish freedom of worship. Before he is able to implement a minimum wage and independent judiciary, the high priests explain to King Sorbo that all laws in Valusia are etched into a giant bronze slab in the palace, and he is not allowed to change any of them. Shackled by the limitations of constitutional monarchy, King Sorbo nonetheless is able to convince Zareta of his noble intentions, and she agrees to assist him in the court.

After the failed assassination attempt, and presumably after they rule out any attempts using bows and arrows, Taligaro and Ducalon, the Mutt and Jeff of palace intrigue, meet the wizard Enaros (Princess Caraboo veteran Edward Tudor-Pole). Enaros, hideously scarred and blind in one eye due to about half a pound of fleshtone putty, is the keeper of an ancient temple containing the remains of Akivasha, the evil sorceress queen now dead for 3000 years. The three plot to reawaken Akivasha to wrest control of the throne from King Sorbo.

With the assistance of his apelike henchman that seems to be the grown-up Cha-Ka from Land of the Lost, Enaros casts a spell that changes Akivasha from the Cryptkeeper to a slightly stoned, redheaded Tia Carrere. Passed off as Ducalon's niece at the palace, we learn that the court doesn't keep track of the royal bloodlines too closely and/or Ducalon's family has a history of yellow fever. Tia uses some form of seduction magic, and cleavage, on King Sorbo, and they are married in the next scene.

At the reception, King Sorbo asks a massively bitter Zareta to read their fortune. Sadly, this does not lead to a catfight; instead Tia pushes her to the floor and storms off with King Sorbo in tow. Zareta's brother, a young priest named Ascalante, helps her up, and in the process notices a birthmark on Tia's leg. An evil birthmark. Ascalante is played by Litefoot, a Cherokee who can boast both a Mortal Kombat 2 credit and an uncanny resemblance to Steven Seagal.

In the bridal suite, Tia kills King Sorbo with some form of poison, magic, or poison magic kiss, then blames it on Zareta, who is promptly arrested. But in a shocking twist, we learn that King Sorbo wasn't killed after all, rather locked away in a dungeon at Enaros's temple. Tia gives seducing him another shot, since, hey, he's Kevin Sorbo. When this fails she leaves him in the custody of Enaros. Enaros leaves him in the custody of the semi-retarded apelike henchman. The semi-retarded apelike henchman, having no one to leave in charge, decides instead to let King Sorbo kill him and escape.

On his way out of the temple King Sorbo encounters Ascalante, who provides the backstory. Tia cannot be harmed by conventional weapons, and can only be sent back to hell with Vulca's breath, which can only be obtained on the Isle of Ice. First, the two plot a rescue of Zareta that relies heavily on King Sorbo running through town without anyone recognizing him. An electric guitar riff signals the beginning of the melee, and soon the two have Zareta in tow and are making their escape through a temple. Taligaro's guards stand them down, cueing another guitar-intensive battle scene. Ascalante refuses the sword offered by King Sorbo, instead grabbing a couple torches off the wall. Informing King Sorbo that as a priest, he cannot take a man's life, Ascalante proceeds to set half of the palace guards on fire.

After their escape, the three meet the sleazy merchant Juba, played by Harvey Fierstein in a rare turn as a homosexual. Harvey owes King Sorbo a favor, since King Sorbo was once used as slave labor on the oars of Harvey's ship and King Sorbo hasn't killed him yet. King Sorbo commandeers the fastest ship and sets off for the Isle of Ice with Harvey as hostage and comic relief. During the evening feast, King Sorbo forces Harvey to taste the food and drink first, fearing poison or roofies.

In a shocking twist, the wine is drugged after all. King Sorbo and company awaken tied up at the oars in a cruel irony, with Harvey mocking them. Unfortunately for Harvey, King Sorbo is so enraged he tears up the plank he was tied down to and rushes him. Even more unfortunately, none of the dozen guards on the ship are anywhere near them, nor in any rush to help out. King Sorbo has time to toss Harvey over the side, free the oarsmen, and enjoy a brief tender moment with Zareta before he dispatches the guards. Triumphant, the crew raises the sails for the Isle of Ice.

Docking inside a cave, King Sorbo, Zareta, and Ascalante reach the altar of Vulca. The room is filled with frozen heroes, because coming within a certain distance of the altar causes people to instantly freeze. Luckily, this effect also can be seen in steel, and King Sorbo is able to stay away. Zareta determines from an inscription on the wall that only a woman may approach the altar and receive the breath. Why she first must strip naked, I don't know.

After receiving the breath, Taligaro appears and reveals his plot to kidnap Zareta, use her to kill Tia, and then take the throne. A gripping power chord signals the beginning of a duel between King Sorbo and Taligaro. The fight ends as Taligaro kills Ascalante, abducts Zareta, and chops out a load-bearing stalactite on his way out, trapping King Sorbo in the cave-in. King Sorbo responds by grabbing an axe from one of the frozen warriors and attacking the altar of Vulca, which also doubles as the reservoir for the island. Water rushes into the room, and not only does King Sorbo not drown, but he is washed out safely to the boat.

Although every last man was slaughtered on his boat, King Sorbo manages to maneuver the craft home closely behind Taligaro. Back in Valusia, Ducalon complains to the 3000-year old evil sorceress that she is not treating him fairly, so Tia kills him. Taligaro arrives with Zareta, finally delivering the long-anticipated catfight. Tia throws Zareta to the floor and undergoes some form of mystical transformation into something that looks related to the evil aliens from Howard the Duck. King Sorbo arrives with his trusty axe and takes out Enaros and Taligaro. A mortally wounded Zareta kisses him, imparting Vulca's breath which apparently can now be carried by a man. King Sorbo kisses what are approximately Tia's lips, and destroys her once and for all, leaving him the only living thing in the temple.

Except Zareta, who recovered when the spirit of pure ice left her lungs. And Taligaro, who promptly takes her hostage. Sadly, Taligaro does not account for the powers of true love, which include unspoken communication. Like, "You should duck because I'm about to throw my axe at his head." After Zareta gets a chance to rinse some of the blood from her clothing, King Sorbo proposes. It is immediately vetoed by the priests as being against the code of the Legal Slab.

King Sorbo responds by swinging his axe into the fifteen-foot high, six-inch thick bronze tablet, which crumbles, symbolizing both that his reforms are inevitable, and that he is truly badass. Holding the axe aloft, he shouts, "With this axe, I rule!" which is something like martial law, except it hurts more. The movie fades out with the kind of raucous cheering you can only get from a crowd of people who don't want to take a battleaxe to the face.

I would have to say that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen.

The One (2001)

Starring: Jet Li

Plot Summary: It's like the Matrix but more.

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Some might call The One a cynical retread of The Matrix just because it's a dark scifi movie about a man, trying to become The One, decked out in tight black clothing, who speaks in the slow, deliberate cadence of a non-native English speaker. However, once you give it a chance, you realize that in addition to the fact that one Jet Li is worth about three and a half Keanu Reeveses, The One so much more than just The Matrix. It manages to take the best aspects from The Matrix, Highlander, and the TV show Sliders.

The premise of The One hinges on the concept of parallel universes, a physics concept first theorized by Star Trek. There exists not only the single universe we live in, rather a series of 125 parallel universes, or a "multi-verse" if you will. In each universe in the "multi-verse" there exists a version of you, who is almost identical to you except having a minor variation of your name. In our universe, Jet Li plays Gabe Law, an officer with the LAPD. In another universe, Jet Li plays Gabriel Yulaw, an ex-officer with the Multi-Verse Authorities (MVA), who is evil.

Well, technically Evil Jet Li has only recently become evil. He is a native of the one universe that mastered transport between universes within the "multi-verse." It involves wormholes and CGI effects from the Lawnmower Man. He worked for the MVA regulating travel between universes, sort of like Timecop except using a really fancy PDA. Two years ago in another universe, Evil Jet Li had to kill Random Other Jet Li in self defense. As predicted by Star Trek, this tore the hell out of the space-time continuum. The energy linking all the Jet Lis in the universe was disrupted, and the power (and in all likelihood chi) of Random Other Jet Li was distributed evenly among the 124 Surviving Jet Lis. They all became stronger, faster, and smarter.

The discovery of this Highlander Corollary to the Star Trek Theorem turned Evil Jet Li evil, and he quit the force to pursue a full-time career of killing all the other Surviving Jet Lis in order to become The One. The One would either be a "god" or a "singularity" destroying the entire "multi-verse." Evil Jet Li pretends not to care either way, but seems to be hoping for the first one. His former partner, Roedecker (played by Delroy Lindo, who had previously collaborated with Jet on the loving tribute to Oakland, CA, that was Romeo Must Die) now pursues him across the "multi-verse" to prevent him from becoming The One. Not with much success, though, since as of the opening sequence Evil Jet Li has dispatched 122 of the 123 Surviving Jet Lis, leaving only him and Good Jet Li (in our universe) alive, each with the combined strength of their fallen brethren. This complicates the apprehension of Evil Jet Li, because now killing Evil Jet Li will just make Good Jet Li into The One.

Roedecker and his rookie partner Funsch, played by Transporter star Jason Statham, pursue Evil Jet Li into our universe with orders to arrest and exile him to the Hades Universe, apparently an entire parallel universe sealed off and converted to a giant prison (which offers an enticing sequel prospect: Kurt Russell in Escape From Hades Universe). Failing that, they must simultaneously kill both Evil Jet Li and Good Jet Li, to prevent either of them from becoming a god and/or destroying the "multi-verse."

The two find Evil Jet Li just in time to foil his assassination attempt, and then explain the situation to an understandably confused Good Jet Li. They vow to protect him, failing to mention the "killing him" aspect of Plan B. Roedecker and Funsch then agree to split up and trail Evil and Good Jet Li, respectively. Thus begins the gripping race for the first major character death between the smartmouth rookie and the sole black man in an action movie.

The black guy wins, indicating that Roedecker must've held the "four days to retirement" tiebreaker. Roedecker confronts Evil Jet Li, loses his gun, and proceeds to fight him unarmed. It is just as the ancient general and essayist Sun Tzu said: "That's what you get." In this case, that's what you get for challenging a man with the strength of sixty two and a half Jet Lis in hand-to-hand combat.

Thankfully, the action choreography takes a firm stand against subtlety and nuance. People paid good money to watch superhuman Jet Lis battle for the universe. There can be no "over the top." The only thing better than Jet Li picking up a police motorcycle and using it as a blunt weapon is Jet Li swinging a police motorcycle in each hand. In a similar vein, the use of slow motion made popular by The Matrix is perfected in The One. When Evil Jet Li flings a cop through midair, the film speed slows to a crawl, allowing us to watch the super-fast Jet sprint over and kick his ass on the way down. This is the gift that The One gave to Hollywood: What was once mere hyperbole is now movie reality.

But seeing Evil Jet Li fling motor vehicles through the air, travel through wormholes, and kill dozens of innocent bystanders isn't really why we watch this movie. We watch this movie to see Evil Jet Li fight Good Jet Li, preferably in a building with a maddeningly intricate floorplan of catwalks and staircases and filled with large, explosion-prone equipment. Thankfully, that is exactly what we get in the wonderfully scripted finale. Granted, there are some people who would say that the first hour of the film is nothing but a drawn out prelude to this fight scene, but this neglects the ten-minute sequence where the two Jet Lis practice their contrasting forms of wushu. This chops up the plot development into two easy-to-digest half-hour segments.

Evil Jet Li sets the finale into motion by killing Good Jet Li's wife, thus establishing conflict beyond the trying to kill Good Jet Li and dominate/destroy the "multi-verse" thing. As a result Good Jet Li is driven into a suicidal rage and all-consuming desire for revenge, both of which, as hero, he is required to have. Thus they meet in a large factory with three stories of catwalks and twelve-inch pipes holding a mysterious green liquid, which according to Hollywood bylaws must be acid. The two Jet Lis fight at length, denting, rupturing, and detonating various sections of the plant.

Safety Note: Although at first the plant appears deserted, five minutes into the fight a generator is damaged and the foreman runs out to evacuate everyone. This indicates that "flying superhuman Chinese wushu masters fighting to the death" needs to be added to the list of emergency procedures.

Even though the two Jet Lis have the exact same strength and ability, the fight ends in a deadlock. Funsch springs into action with his wormhole-opening PDA, flinging all three of them into Funsch and Evil Jet Li's universe. After a brief misunderstanding when the sworn protectors of the "multi-verse" accidentally drag Good Jet Li off for exile because Evil Jet Li tells them to, they square it away and exile Evil Jet Li to the Hades Universe.

The Agency then tries to send Good Jet Li back to our universe for a life on the run from the cops, but Funsch intervenes and quickly changes the coordinates to a universe where Good Jet Li is a free man, the parallel version of his wife is still alive, there's no smog in L.A., and presumably people walk around town handing out free cotton candy. As the "multi-verse"-crossed lovers meet again for the first time, we fade out, content in the knowledge that Good Jet Li's life will be back on track right after he clears up the legal red tape in that universe surrounding his previous murder of himself by himself.

I would have to say that The One is the greatest movie I have ever seen.