The Spy Who Loved Me

The best James Bond adventure of the 1970s is also the best of Roger Moore’s Bond films and one of the best ever made. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME features breathtaking Oscar-nominated sets designed by Ken Adam (Pinewood Studios had to build a huge new stage — christened the 007 Stage — to accommodate them), location shooting in nine (!) different countries, a well-crafted screenplay by series veteran Richard Maibaum (GOLDFINGER) and newcomer Christopher Wood (MOONRAKER), and the introduction of one of the series’ greatest villains: the seven-foot steel-toothed assassin Jaws (Richard Kiel), who survives falls, crushings, electrocution, and shark attacks in indestructible fashion.

Lewis Gilbert, who directed the stunning finale of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE a decade earlier, was the perfect craftsman to juggle THE SPY WHO LOVED ME’s epic production, which opens with an exciting ski chase culminating in stuntman Rick Sylvester’s impressive jump off Mount Asgard and witty Union Jack parachute. From there, 007 (Moore for the third time) gets down to business, teaming up with Russian spy Anya Amasova (CAVEMAN’s Barbara Bach) to prevent megalomaniacal shipping magnate Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) from conquering the world with stolen nuclear missiles and ruling from his ocean stronghold.

While Bond has the sultry KGB agent Amasova on his side, Stromberg stacks the deck with an army of colorfully jumpsuited minions, not to mention Jaws; the hulking Sandor (Milton Reid), reminiscent of GOLDFINGER’s Oddjob; and the sexy chopper-flying assassin Naomi, portrayed by British cult actress Caroline Munro (STARCRASH). He also has a shark tank that comes in handy when disciplining disloyal employees.

From a technical standpoint, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is top-notch down the line. Derek Meddings’ miniatures are seamlessly blended with live-action photography to create the film’s authentic comic-book universe. The Maibaum/Wood screenplay isn’t afraid to inject real drama into the adventure, giving Moore and Bach juicy moments to play. Bond visibly flinches at Amasova’s mention of his late wife Tracy (from ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE) and doesn’t hesitate to kill a helpless enemy in cold blood — moments Moore handles with great assurance.

While the climactic assault on Stromberg’s wonderfully designed lair is the film’s best setpiece, mention must be made of the Italian car chase, which pits Bond’s tricked-out Lotus Esprit against a car, a motorcycle, and Naomi’s helicopter — a chase that continues underwater after the car transforms into a submarine. The only major misstep is Marvin Hamlisch’s disco-influenced score, which was nominated for an Academy Award (as was the theme song performed by Carly Simon), but pales compared to the Bond music composed by John Barry and David Arnold. Producer Albert R. Broccoli planned to produce FOR YOUR EYES ONLY next, but the success of STAR WARS induced him to make MOONRAKER, set in outer space, instead.

No Way To Treat A Lady

Boy oh boy, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rod Steiger (THE PAWNBROKER), the ultimate ham, paid Paramount to play the master-of-disguise serial killer in this adaptation of William Goldman’s novel. Eyes a-buggin’, lips a-smackin’, accents a-waverin’, ol’ Rod propels NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY with a wild tour de force that straddles the line between genius and insanity.

Filmed in New York City by director Jack Smight (HARPER) and director of photography Jack Priestley (who brilliantly lensed the Big Apple for the NAKED CITY television series), the adaptation by John Gay (SEPARATE TABLES) differs wildly from Goldman’s vision, but remains a great deal of fun. Most of the fun, however, drips from the performances by Steiger and George Segal (THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT) as two mother-dominated figures on opposite sides of the coin.

Segal is dead right as Morris Brummel, a nebbishy cop investigating a series of murders in which woman are strangled and left with lipstick on their foreheads. The killer, revealed as Steiger’s Christopher Gill, celebrates murder by calling Brummel on the telephone, which upsets the detective’s mother (Overbearing Jewish Mother Supreme Eileen Heckart) and interferes with his budding relationship with lovely Lee Remick (TELEFON) as the beguiling witness Kate Palmer.

As much a dark comedy as crime meller, NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY gets good mileage from its cast, including supporting players victim (Martine Bartlett, Doris Roberts) and non-victim (David Doyle, Val Bisoglio, Michael Dunn as a midget who confesses to the murders). Director Smight, whose verve for the theatrical pales next to that of Steiger, Segal, and Gay, doesn’t totally connect with the material. In particular, a scene in which both Steiger and his victim (Kim August) are, unbeknownst to each other, in drag should play with more wit than it does. There’s unintentional humor in the obvious rug the actor Steiger wears when his character is not in disguise, even though his character seems like the kind of guy who would wear a bad toupee.

The Man With The Golden Gun

Quite a letdown after Roger Moore’s 007 debut in LIVE AND LET DIE, the ninth in the James Bond series stands as the second worst (just ahead of DIE ANOTHER DAY). One of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN’s rare bright spots is Hammer horror star Christopher Lee, his cousin Ian Fleming’s choice to play Dr. No (the part went to Joseph Wiseman). Lee co-stars as Scaramanga, a tri-nippled assassin who makes a million bucks per hit and wants to control the solar energy market with a high-tech device on his private island.

Like LIVE AND LET DIE, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN was directed by Guy Hamilton and written by Tom Mankiewicz, who shares credit with Bond veteran Richard Maibaum (GOLDFINGER). It looks cheap — unusual for a James Bond movie — the sets are uninviting, and most of the performances are abysmal. Sadly, what should have been the film’s most outstanding setpiece — Bond spinning an AMC Hornet lengthwise in midair — is ruined by a tasteless sound effect of a slide whistle — another indication nobody was taking this film seriously enough.

Bond (Roger Moore) opens the film minding his own business until Scaramanga’s calling card — a golden bullet — arrives at MI6 headquarters with “007” carved into it. Since nobody knows what Scaramanga looks like, Bond has his work cut out for him, but he manages to track the killer as far as Andrea Anders (Maud Adams), Scaramanga’s moll. That lead doesn’t pan out, and neither does Bond’s infiltration of the estate of Thai mobster Hai Fat (Richard Loo from all those 1940s WWII movies). At least it leads to Bond fighting a pair of sumo wrestlers (a fine idea) and then an entire karate school in an action scene inspired by the popular martial arts movies then glutting drive-ins.

In addition to Adams (later in OCTOPUSSY as a different character), Bond dallies with Britt Ekland (THE WICKER MAN) as Mary Goodnight, possibly MI6’s most inept agent. Somehow more embarrassing are FANTASY ISLAND star Herve Villechaize as a dwarf henchman ignominiously trapped in a suitcase and Clifton James, returning from LIVE AND LET DIE, as bigoted Louisiana sheriff J.W. Pepper, who is inexplicably shopping for an AMC automobile on his Bangkok vacation.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN was a major box office disappointment, grossing almost 40% less worldwide than LIVE AND LET DIE. This may have spurred producer Cubby Broccoli to up his game with the next feature, giving THE SPY WHO LOVED ME higher stakes, more scope, less comedy, and double the budget.

Live And Let Die

Roger Moore’s first turn as James Bond also marks the beginning of the series’ aping of current cinema trends, which continued through the Daniel Craig era’s copying of the Bourne movies. LIVE AND LET DIE wears its blaxploitation influence on its sleeve, right down to the casting of Yaphet Kotto, who went on to co-star in FRIDAY FOSTER and TRUCK TURNER, as its villain. Strictly in terms of international box office dollars, LIVE AND LET DIE became the most successful 007 film produced up to that time, so there was no doubt James Bond would return in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.

Directed by GOLDFINGER’s Guy Hamilton, the eighth 007 picture contains terrific action sequences, including a double-decker bus passing under a short bridge, Bond’s escape from a crocodile swamp, and a spectacular boat chase in which a speedboat jumps 110 feet over a road. It also boasts an Oscar-nominated theme song by Paul McCartney and Wings (which lost to the treacly title song from THE WAY WE WERE) and the gorgeous Jane Seymour (DR. QUINN, MEDICINE WOMAN), then 21 years old, as Solitaire, a psychic who retains her powers only as long as she remains a virgin — a status Bond quickly remedies.

The plot by Tom Mankiewicz (DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER) sends Bond to Harlem to investigate the murders of three MI6 agents. He meets Solitaire, the moll of black druglord Mr. Big (a disguised Kotto), as well as his CIA contact, Rosie Carver (BLACK BELT JONES’ Gloria Hendry), and the vicious Dr. Kananga (Kotto), the dictator of a Caribbean island who also manages a multimillion-dollar heroin operation from there. Bond follows the bouncing ball to the Caribbean, Louisiana, and back to Kananga’s island for the climax.

David Hedison (VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA) plays the reliable CIA agent Felix Leiter (he would reprise the role in LICENSE TO KILL), and Clifton James (LONE STAR) regrettably plays the ridiculously stereotyped Southern sheriff J.W. Pepper (why he returned in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is beyond reasoning). Especially of note are Julius Harris (BLACK CAESAR) as hook-handed Tee Hee, Earl Jolly Brown (BLACK BELT JONES) as quiet Whisper, and choreographer Geoffrey Holder (ANNIE) as Baron Samedi, all members of the Bond Villains’ Henchmen Hall of Fame.

Terror In The Jungle

If more people knew about it, I'm convinced that TERROR IN THE JUNGLE would be renowned as one of the most hilarious movies ever made. The filmmakers (some of them, anyway) went all the way to Peru to shoot this Crown International potboiler, but it hardly seems worth the effort. The jungle footage is barely more authentic-looking than a Bomba movie, and it may just as well have been filmed in Florida.

TERROR is the work of three (!) credited directors: Tom DeSimone (credited with Plane Sequence), Alexander Grattan (Temple Sequence), and Andy Janczak (Jungle Sequence). Any scene set elsewhere, who knows who directed it? Each director looks as though he had his own cinematographer (and perhaps film stock), and DeSimone (CHATTERBOX) claimed he never left California. His footage is the funniest, as the movie sets up an array of stock characters Irwin Allen-style, including some nuns, a struggling starlet, a rock band (with awful wigs), and a 5-year-old boy traveling alone to meet his mother in Rio de Janeiro.

All the character development is wasted after the plane crashes 25 minutes into the movie, and almost everyone is killed, either by the crash or by hungry crocodiles. It's difficult to say which element of this part of the film is funniest: the incredibly poor acting, the cheap sets, the laughable special effects, the ridiculous song ("Sweet Lips"?) performed by the band, the dead nun that pitches forward out of her coffin (which is stored standing up next to the door!), or the stupid plot.

The lone survivor of the plane crash is the little boy, Henry, who is portrayed by one of cinema's worst child actors. All he pretty much does is whimper, and I can only imagine the ways in which the directors terrorized him, because all his crying jags have to be real. No way is this kid a good enough actor to fake crying. Henry is captured by a tribe of Jivaro natives, who are convinced he is the son of their god after the chief sees a terrible special effect/blinking yellow glow emanating from the kid's blond hair. Only one native disbelieves and keeps trying to convince the chief to kill the brat.

Meanwhile, the boy's father, Henry Sr., learns about the plane crash and travels to South America to find his son. He hooks up with a priest, who takes Henry to see another priest deep in the jungle. Priest #2 says he can get some natives to guide them to the Jivaros' village if Priest #1 will give up his robe and his rosary to one of them. Priest #1 is surprisingly reluctant, considering a little kid's life is at risk, but I can understand why he wouldn't want to traipse through the jungle in his undershirt.

Back at the village, the chief is finally convinced to kill the kid, but a friendly native and his posse start a riot. Many huts are burned down, many natives are stabbed to death (the stabbings are depicted with animation!), and little Henry escapes. Just when he's about to be grabbed and stabbed by the one evil native, his stuffed toy tiger somehow transforms into a real leopard (!) and mauls the guy to death.

The whiny kid gets away (and the leopard changes back into a toy), but falls into some "quicksand" (in reality, a two-foot hole in a mud puddle). While a stock-footage python stalks him, he yells for his daddy, who manages to be within earshot and runs to rescue his son. This is done by laying on his chest in a puddle, while his companions grab his legs and pretend he's in danger of being sucked into that 1/8-inch-deep water. Dad "pulls" his kid to safety, "The End" appears on the screen, and Crown International has successfully ripped off another audience.

Hellbound

Cannon planned a wide theatrical release for HELLBOUND, even sending one-sheets and trailers to theaters, but it ended up as Chuck Norris’ first direct-to-video film. It was Chuck’s last film for Cannon, which produced the first three episodes of WALKER, TEXAS RANGER before shuttering. HELLBOUND’s premise is silly but promising: Chuck Norris as a Chicago cop against an 800-year-old minion of Satan named Prosetanos and played — let’s be generous and say “in an arch manner” — by Christopher Neame (DRACULA A.D. 1972) sporting an insane skullet.

Prosetanos escapes the tomb in which King Richard the Lion-Hearted sentenced him 800 years earlier and seeks all nine pieces of a jeweled scepter he needs to rule the world. His murder of a rabbi in the Windy City attracts the attention of detective Frank Shatter (Norris) and his wisecracking partner Jackson (Calvin Levels), who journey to Jerusalem to continue their investigation. Although the film’s first act gives hope of a movie about Chuck Norris kicking the crap out of demons, HELLBOUND is instead a police procedural that, to be fair, culminates in Chuck Norris kicking the crap out of a demon. But it’s too little too late.

Weirdness abounds, above and beyond Chuck Norris fighting a minion of Satan. A bit about street urchins ripping off Jackson’s wallet serves no purpose except killing time, and a running gag about Shatter preventing his partner from eating is just bizarre. Both clash with the tone of an R-rated film with action and gore about Satan’s acolyte ruling the world. I don’t know what to make of the film’s vocal support for a Ross Perot presidency. Sheree J. Wilson, Chuck’s WALKER love interest, appears as an antiquities expert whose contribution is mainly preventing HELLBOUND from being a total sausagefest.

HELLBOUND’s depiction of Chicago on a Jerusalem soundstage is laughable, but once the film’s setting moves to Israel, production values aren’t half bad for a film at this budget level. Editing by Cannon regular Michael Duthie (AVENGING FORCE) and music by Cannon regular George S. Clinton (AMERICAN NINJA 2) are quite good. Director Aaron Norris (Chuck’s brother) and stunt coordinator Mike Norris (Chuck’s son) deliver plenty of karate-kicking, heart-ripping (literally) action. Weaknesses are the performances, particularly Levels’ “ugly American” jive and Neame’s histrionics, and the nonsense script credited to four writers, including Brent Friedman (AMERICAN CYBORG: STEEL WARRIOR) and Donald G. Thompson (THE EVIL).

Supertrain, "Express To Terror"

SUPERTRAIN remains one of network television’s biggest disasters. When it premiered as a midseason replacement during NBC’s 1978-79 season, SUPERTRAIN was the most expensive series in television history, yet it underwent a massive retooling after its fourth episode and was finally cancelled after only nine episodes aired. Much of the initial cost of the series — reportedly $5 million — went towards constructing the main sets and miniatures representing Supertrain, basically a Love Boat on railroad tracks that could travel across the United States in a day and a half. As a setting for adventure, romance, drama, comedy, and intrigue, Supertrain — and SUPERTRAIN — was a bust.

The two-hour pilot, which was released in syndication and on videocassette as a standalone movie, aired opposite a special two-hour episode of CHARLIE’S ANGELS on ABC, so the competition was afraid of SUPERTRAIN at first. They shouldn’t have been. Produced and directed by television veteran Dan Curtis (THE WINDS OF WAR), the pilot titled “Express to Terror” flashes an early warning sign when it misspells the name of “Special Guest Star” Vicki Lawrence, who had been a regular on the popular CAROL BURNETT SHOW for over a decade.

Guest stars were to be the focus of SUPERTRAIN, as was the case on THE LOVE BOAT and FANTASY ISLAND, two ABC hits being blatantly ripped off (including a scene where the passengers wave goodbye and toss ticker tape at spectators on the platform). EXPRESS TO TERROR’s top-billed guest star is Steve Lawrence, another early warning sign. He plays Mike Post (!), a gambler targeted by a mysterious black-gloved killer. Helping him find the assassin are his best pal Don Meredith (BANJO HACKETT) and ditzy Char Fontane, an actress NBC was really pushing at that time (to no success). George Hamilton, Ron Masak (MURDER, SHE WROTE), Stella Stevens (THE NUTTY PROFESSOR), and Fred Williamson (THAT MAN BOLT) are also in it, but it’s not clear to me who they’re playing.

An atomic-powered train equipped with a gym, a swimming pool, a beauty salon, a movie theater, a disco, and luxury passenger cabins, Supertrain, granted, is an impressive set, even though some of the sets seem improbably large. The script, however, amazingly credited to Oscar winner Earl Wallace (WITNESS) and acclaimed crime novelist Donald Westlake, is awful. When Lawrence and Meredith are trapped in the sauna, they can hear the tinkle of a barbell being lifted outside, yet the weightlifter can’t hear them yelling and pounding on the door. The writers do a horrible job of introducing the characters, not just their names, but also their backstories and relationships with each other. The story is as confusing as the sets are expensive. For some reason, the TV Guide ad from the premiere uses an illustration of Robert Culp as the killer.

Man On A Swing

I like the matter-of-fact approach that director Frank Perry (MOMMIE DEAREST) takes with police chief Lee Tucker’s (Cliff Robertson) murder investigation of a young woman in 1974's MAN ON A SWING.

Perry filmed MAN ON A SWING in an actual small New England city on what appear to be practical sets (the police station is in a dingy basement). He uses long lenses to show his actors in realistic landscapes crowded with extras to emphasize the grounded environment in which the mystery is set.

It also helps the audience put Franklin Wells (Joel Grey) into the proper perspective. Tucker doesn’t investigate many murders, and this one is tricky. Margaret Dawson (Dianne Hull) vanished after buying groceries at a busy shopping center. A day later, she turned up in the center’s parking lot on the floor of her Volkswagen. She had been strangled, but not raped, with a single drop of blood on her bosom.

After encountering a few dead ends, including Maggie’s former boyfriend played by future Buck Rogers Gil Gerard, Tucker receives a phone call from Wells, who claims to be clairvoyant. Wells knows things about the murder that nobody else could have, such as the prescription sunglasses that Tucker found in her purse. He’s also a strange guy who falls into trances (or so he says), fidgets, bounces around the room, and occasionally displays a sharp temper.

Maybe he’s the killer.

David Zelag Goodman (STRAW DOGS) based his screenplay on an actual 1968 case, which was chronicled in THE GIRL ON THE VOLKSWAGEN FLOOR by William Clark, the Ohio journalist who covered it. Barbara Ann Butler’s real-life murder was never officially solved. That conclusion just wouldn’t do for a Paramount drama, so Perry gives us a killer. He also knows how to ratchet up the suspense when he needs to, and MAN ON A SWING is damn creepy in spots.

While Grey (CABARET) has the showier part, to say the least, it’s Robertson (CHARLY) who has the more important job of making us believe that Wells could possibly be psychic. His Lee Tucker is patient, calm, tolerant, but not naive.

Cyborg 2: Glass Shadow

Angelina Jolie starred in CYBORG 2 when she was just 17 years old. For some people, that’s a good enough reason to watch the film. Jack Palance, just six months after winning the Academy Award for CITY SLICKERS, is also in this movie, hamming big time. For some people, that’s a good enough reason to watch CYBORG 2. For most of the world, there is no reason to watch it.

Let’s get this out of the way. Despite flashing clips of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dayle Haddon, this so-called sequel has next to nothing to do with CYBORG and even lies about that film’s plot to better serve its own story. “Filmed entirely on location in Los Angeles County, California,” CYBORG 2 is set in 2087, when the world is run by two rival corporations that manufacture robots. One is in Japan. The other, Pinwheel, is American and operated by sleazy Dunn (Allen Garfield, who dedicated his performance to the late Ray Sharkey).

Pinwheel plans to implant a powerful explosive called Glass Shadow (I dunno) into foxy female cyborgs and then blow up executives of its Japanese rivals, leaving Pinwheel with no competition. The company’s secret weapon is the luscious Cash Reese, played by Jolie, and one can understand how a company that can mass-produce teenage Angelina Jolie sex robots could easily rule the world.

Cash escapes from Pinwheel’s underground lab, however, along with her human karate instructor Colt (Elias Koteas, the guy you hire when Christopher Meloni is unavailable). Pursuing the mismatched duo, who may or may not fall in love with each other, is a bounty hunter named Bench (Billy Drago), whose face fell apart in a losing battle with battery acid five years earlier. While the chase is going on, the mysterious Mercy (Palance, who worked maybe a whole day reading a TelePrompter) pops up intermittently on monitors and television sets to ramble gibberish that’s meant to advise Cash and Colt on their next move.

I’m making the plot sound simple and clear, but, believe me, it isn’t. It hardly makes sense and is bogged down with groggy exposition and droning dialogue credited to director Michael Schroeder (DEAD ON: RELENTLESS II) and writers Ron Yanover and Mark Geldman (THE JUNGLE BOOK). Schroeder’s slow pacing, cheap sets, and unconvincing effects and makeup (partially done by the KNB Group) further bog down CYBORG 2. Even the usually reliable Drago, whose Method mumbling can often be entertaining, seems reaching for a characterization that isn’t on the page and comes across as irritating. The intense Koteas is miscast as a martial artist in an action movie.

As for Angelina Jolie, who performs the first of many nude scenes in her career, she’s obviously well-cast as an vacant sex toy, but was not yet an actress. Instead, she performs with the grace and the awkward detachment of the fashion model that she was at the time. Obviously, she got a lot better at her craft, but it would be nigh impossible to predict from CYBORG 2 the direction her career would go.

Other familiar names, such as Karen Sheperd (AMERICA 3000), Sven-Ole Thorsen (THE RUNNING MAN), Tracey Walter (REPO MAN), Robert Dryer (SAVAGE STREETS), and Richard Hill (DEATHSTALKER), appear in supporting roles to jazz the cult fans. Did this terrible direct-to-video movie make money? Sure did. Schroeder returned a year later with CYBORG 3 with HEAD OF THE CLASS redhead Khrystyne Haje playing Cash.

Suicide Squad

From literally the first frame of SUICIDE SQUAD, you know it’s lazy, unadventurous, by-the-book filmmaking. Writer/director David Ayer (SABOTAGE) opens the film with an on-screen graphic identifying the setting as Louisiana, while the soundtrack plays “House of the Rising Sun,” mandated for every bad film set in Louisiana. Soon after, Ayer cuts to three people sitting at a table, where they spend ten minutes laying out backstory (between sloppy continuity errors) for the characters, complete with on-screen graphics reproducing their resumes — another sign that the director isn’t taxing his creativity.

And if eight credited editors doesn’t signal disaster, a scene where Ayer establishes the circus-like sharpshooter abilities of hitman Deadshot (Will Smith giving the film’s only competent performances), later followed by yet another scene establishing his skills, tells you the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, even though both hands belong to David Ayer.

This would normally be the place to briefly synopsize the film’s plot, but because SUICIDE SQUAD has none, I’ll jump to the basic premise. Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) conceives the bright idea to put together a squad of evil villains with superpowers and abilities to fight Superman (or a “metahuman” like him) in case Superman ever became a terrorist. Two problems with this stupid premise. First, there is zero chance the B- and C-listers in the Suicide Squad could ever defeat Superman. The second is that the film repeatedly tells Waller that her idea is a stupid one — “These people are uncontrollable!” — and the movie never tells us why it isn’t. Seems like assembling a squad of superheroes, rather than a squad of supervillains, would make a helluva lot more sense.

The Suicide Squad consists of Deadshot, who shoots people; Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who also shoots people, so no idea what she brings to the table except a wardrobe of wet T-shirt and panties; Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), who throws boomerangs at people; Diablo (Jay Hernandez), who throws fire at people; Katana (Karen Fukuhara), who cuts people with a sword; Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who’s basically a stronger pro wrestler; Slipknot (Adam Beach), cannon fodder; and Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), a soldier and the group’s leader. As mentioned above, no chance these guys could stop Superman from hailing a cab. Some of them receive little flashback origin stories. Some just show up (“Hey, that guy’s called Slipknot.”).

Also in this movie is Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), a witch who exists only to give the squad someone to fight. Her powers and motivations are poorly explained, and it beats me what her endgame is. And there’s the Joker (who has the word “Damaged” tattooed on his forehead in case, you know, we didn’t figure it out), embarrassingly portrayed by Jared Leto (DALLAS BUYERS CLUB) as a brilliant underworld figure who openly hangs out in Gotham City nightclubs, leaving one pondering why Batman lets the madman run around loose. Of the main cast, Leto appears only with Robbie and serves no purpose to the story, but allows Ayer to stretch the running time to a ridiculous 130 minutes.

The film contains no surprises. Everything you think is going to happen does. The soundtrack consists of the same six family-friendly oldies that have been littering bad films for years, and just when you think Ayer surely isn’t hacky enough to include “Spirit in the Sky,” ah, hell no. Outside of Smith’s Deadshot, who could use a movie of his own without rummies pulling him down, the characters behave strictly according to action movie tropes nearly as old as action movies themselves.

Look, you knew SUICIDE SQUAD wasn’t going to be good — if it were, Jai Courtney wouldn’t have been in it — but who could have expected it to be ineptly paced garbage with no exciting action scenes, no innovative visual effects, no adequate performances (save Will Smith), and no visual style? Ayer aims for heavy dramatics during the climax when Smith shouts at Robbie to toss him her gun in slow motion, and all I could think while fighting drowsiness was, “What’s wrong with the two guns you have strapped to your arms?”

Assault On Paradise aka Ransom aka Maniac! (1977)

Roger Corman tried like hell to get this Arizona-lensed action movie to catch on with audiences. New World released it as ASSAULT ON PARADISE, RANSOM, THE TOWN THAT CRIED TERROR, and MANIAC!, apparently to little success under any title. Frankly, if drive-in audiences weren’t interested in something called ASSAULT ON PARADISE with a boozy cast including Oliver Reed (THE THREE MUSKETEERS), Stuart Whitman (RUBY), Jim Mitchum (TRACKDOWN), and John Ireland (THE SWISS CONSPIRACY), probably nothing could save it.

A killer (MR. MAJESTYK’s Paul Koslo) plants a couple of arrows in a couple of cops and leaves a ransom note at the police station demanding $1 million or the local millionaires are gonna be skewered too. Instead of leaving it to weasly police chief Ireland to deal with, crooked rich guy Whitman hires mercenary Reed to find the shooter and kill him. Despite a tight deadline of 3:00 p.m. the next day, Reed’s first move is to drink Scotch and a tequila sunrise at a bar and hit it and quit it with superfluous reporter Deborah Raffin (DEATH WISH 3).

Reed, who has bullied local guide Mitchum into helping, manages to lose Koslo at the drop site, and the revelation that greedy Whitman has substituted blank paper for the million bucks means more millionaires are gonna feel the sting of Koslo’s crossbow. Koslo, who dons Native American war paint in front of a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald before going on killing sprees, is revealed to be a former athlete who failed the Olympic tryouts. What isn’t revealed is why he has such a mad-on for Whitman. One problem with the film is that Whitman and Reed are not likable enough to root for and Mitchum not interesting enough.

Director Richard Compton earned his exploitation-movie credentials with the dark soldiers-back-from-Nam flick WELCOME HOME, SOLDIER BOYS followed by the classic MACON COUNTY LINE and its more-or-less sequel RETURN TO MACON COUNTY. A stalk-and-shoot set in Whitman’s mansion showcases some effective shots, and the action scenes in general show pep. Almost as much as the out-of-his-mind Reed, who bulls his way through this china shop in search of his next drink. Don Ellis (THE FRENCH CONNECTION) papers over the plot holes with a gonzo music score, and Roger McGuinn’s closing theme song, “Victor’s Theme: Shoot Him,” is hilarious.

When Corman re-released the film as MANIAC!, he and post-production supervisor Miller Drake, who directed a new prologue for SCREAMERS, tacked on a prologue that has nothing to do with the rest of the film that shows a gunman in a creepy clown mask (Corman couldn’t get Koslo back for reshoots) gunning down a couple necking in a convertible. Despite the steamy sex and attention-getting gore, MANIAC! went out with ASSAULT ON PARADISE’s original PG rating. It’s likely the MPAA never saw this cut of the film.

Kill Them All And Come Back Alone

In addition to boasting one of the toughest movie titles of all time, this Italian western directed by action specialist Enzo G. Castellari (THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS) is a total blast from start to finish. KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE (which is a line actually spoken in the film) is the only spaghetti western to star Chuck Connors, an American TV regular (THE RIFLEMAN, BRANDED, COWBOY IN AFRICA) who may have gone overseas to duplicate RAWHIDE star Clint Eastwood’s big-screen success.

Connors has the perfect face for Italian westerns, so perhaps he was just too busy in Hollywood to make others. He plays the Peter Graves/Lee Marvin role, named Clyde MacKay, in this riff on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and THE DIRTY DOZEN.

Captain Lynch (Frank Wolff) of the Confederacy has a mission for MacKay and his ragtag squad of ruffians, all of whom have a particular specialty. The blond Kid (Alberto Dell’Aqua) is an athlete and an acrobat. The half-Mexican/half-Indian Blade (Ken Wood, who played the superhero Superargo in two films) is expert with knives. Hoagy (Franco Citti) works with a bolo. Deker (Leo Anchoriz) uses a bazooka shaped like a banjo. Strongman Bogard (Hercules Cortes) looks like Dan Blocker.

Their mission (Wolff reminds MacKay that if he and his men are captured, the Confederates will disavow any knowledge of their actions) is to infiltrate a Union stronghold and make off with $1 million in gold. The catch is that the coins are disguised as sticks of dynamite and scattered among real dynamite stored in a Union compound atop an imposing hill. One misplaced shot could destroy the treasure. Of course, with that much money on the table, you can guess that not everyone’s mind is strictly on the mission they’re assigned to carry out.

Fans of Italian cinema are familiar with Castellari’s skills at creating action scenes, and KILL THEM ALL… is practically nothing but. With Connors’ toothy grin as anchor, Castellari varies the action from small-scale barroom brawls to massive setpieces involving explosions and dozens of extras in the Spanish desert. He even opens the film in media res with Connors’ team showing off their specialties in a precredits sequence that effectively introduces the stars.

If you’re looking for gun battles, fistfights, and stunts for their own sake without pesky subtext or symbolism getting in the way, KILL THEM ALL AND COME BACK ALONE is the perfect romp.

Star Trek Beyond

The good news about STAR TREK BEYOND is that it’s as good as this series of STAR TREK adventures produced by J.J. Abrams (STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS) is going to get. The bad news is that it’s as good as this series is going to get.

Light on human drama, literary allusions, and social and political commentary — aspects of the 1960s television series that made it popular enough for Paramount to continue making STAR TREK films fifty years later — STAR TREK BEYOND is not STAR TREK exactly. However, it is a moderately entertaining action/adventure film that, to its credit, retains the humanism and progressive ideals introduced to television audiences by Gene Roddenberry in 1966.

Aside from Chris Pine (JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT), whose screen intensity matches those of his blue eyes in the iconic role of Captain James T. Kirk (originally played by William Shatner, natch), the new U.S.S. Enterprise cast assembled by Abrams for 2009’s STAR TREK (the execrable STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS followed in 2013) deliver impressions, rather than full performances. They can hardly be blamed, as the screenplay by Simon Pegg (who plays chief engineer Scotty) and Doug Jung (TV’s DARK BLUE) doesn’t give them much to play outside of standard action beats.

Zachary Quinto (TV’s HEROES) as emotionless (sometimes) Mr. Spock and Karl Urban (DREDD) as crusty Dr. McCoy do a nice job of channeling Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley, though making two films together, rather than 79 episodes of television, prevents them from sharing the sharp chemistry the script wishes to convey. Same goes for Quinto and Pine, who try to convince us that Spock and Kirk are a “great team” and best friends, even though they barely tolerated each other in the first two movies.

Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, communications officer Uhura (Zoe Saldana), navigator Chekov (Anton Yelchin, who died in a tragic accident shortly before the film’s release), helmsman Sulu (John Cho), and the rest of the crew meet trouble in outer space in the form of Krell, an angry alien who wants to destroy a Starfleet base because...well, Pegg and Jung are a little vague. Hopes that Krell’s motivations would become clear by the third act or that we would learn more about him are dashed, as director Justin Lin, fresh from several THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS movies, moves the plot along too fast and too furious to be bothered with evolving any relationships, including the spotty romance between Spock and Uhura.

Krell is played by Idris Elba (BEASTS OF NO NATION), who is so bogged down by rubber makeup and false teeth that spoil his diction that he’s unable to give a performance. The makeup does all the emoting. A more successful addition to STAR TREK BEYOND is Sofia Boutella, the razor-legged assassin of KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE, giving an electric performance as Jaylah, a tough, smart alien stranded on the same planet as Kirk and crew after Krell destroys their beloved Enterprise. Few action cliches are left unturned, and Urban actually has to say “The fear of death is what keeps us alive” without puking.

If you had to guess which cast member wrote the film, no doubt you would guess Pegg, who gives himself the best lines and a solo subplot with Jaylah apart from the other regular cast. Editing is sloppy — shore leave at the starbase seems to last about ten minutes, and Sulu and Uhura begin a scene escaping from a cell we didn’t know they were in. The starbase itself seems imaginatively conceived, but Lin never gives a chance to get a good look at it, even though the climax is set there. Costumes are eye-pleasing and faithful to the original show, though the zippers would make Roddenberry freak out if he were alive to see them. Michael Giacchino (THE INCREDIBLES) provides a decent score (his third straight STAR TREK), and the late Leonard Nimoy’s death just prior to production is given a classy nod. The film is dedicated to him and Yelchin.

Ghostbusters (2016)

At last, a GHOSTBUSTERS movie that supplies all the queef jokes that were sadly missing from the 1984 original. Given their blessing by original stars Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, as well as original director Ivan Reitman, all of whom profit from the success of this movie, the new GHOSTBUSTERS plows uncharted territory by making the busters of ghosts women.

Unlike the anarchic original film, which was scripted with surprises by Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, the new GHOSTBUSTERS is entirely predictable and creatively lazy. Everyone remembers the Stay-Puft marshmallow man from the original — one of film comedy’s most delightful and subversive reveals. Contrast that reveal with the big bad in the remake, which you’ll see coming an hour ahead.

Melissa McCarthy (IDENTITY THIEF) and SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE cast members past and present Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon are the new ghostbusters in a screenplay by THE HEAT’s Katie Dippold and director Paul Feig that follows the basic structure of the original and finds time to shoehorn in mostly unsuccessful cameos by the original cast (the late Ramis, to whom the remake is dedicated, receives the classiest hat tip). Outside of occasionally witty visual effects and a scene-stealing turn by McKinnon as the gadget-happy ghostbuster named Holtzmann, very little of it is amusing. Chris Hemsworth, demonstrating why he rarely is cast in comedies, is the busters’ himbo secretary, a role that would spawn a hundred thinkpieces if the gender were switched. Andy Garcia (THE GODFATHER PART III) takes no billing as cinema’s 2588th foolish mayor, which spawns a timely JAWS joke.

But back to McKinnon. Of the main cast, only she is aware that the script is barely funny. Very little of what she says is funny on the face of it. But listen to her quirky line deliveries, watch the way she gestures or how she reacts to the craziness with a demented smile. She’s a little of the old Bill Murray and quite a bit of Harpo Marx (she even wears an unusual blond hairdo). Her performance is so out of step with McCarthy’s mugging, Wiig’s bumbling, and Jones’ yelling (her “feets, don’t fail me now” subway worker would spawn a thousand thinkpieces if the gender were switched) that one wonders whether the whole picture should have been structured like an absurdist Marx Brothers vehicle. McKinnon is as good in GHOSTBUSTERS as Kristen’s wig is bad.

Gridlocked

Here’s that ripoff of THE HARD WAY you didn’t know you wanted. Remember, the one with cigar store Indian Dominic Purcell (LEGENDS OF TOMORROW) replacing unpredictable, mercurial James Woods and who-the-hell-is-this-guy Cody Hackman, who worked with director Allan Ungar on an MMA action film, as the charming Michael J. Fox? Sure, that ripoff. And guess what? Stephen Lang (AVATAR) is the bad guy in both films! To quote a different Michael J. Fox movie, “Heavy.”

GRIDLOCKED isn’t exactly a comedy, but it has a sense of humor that occasionally clashes with nasty violence. I wouldn’t mind seeing this script performed by more charismatic stars than Purcell and Hackman, but they’re all we have. So the mismatched team of immature, irreverent bad-boy movie star Hackman (no relation to Gene) and gruff, humorless tough-guy cop Purcell — who, of course, aren’t getting along — pay a late-night visit to Purcell’s former colleagues at a SWAT facility forty miles from Manhattan (why a SWAT headquarters is way out in the cornfields, I have no idea). Bad timing, as the building is attacked by bad guys led by Lang (who is very good) and Vinnie Jones (EUROTRIP), ridiculously cast as a New York City cop.

With Hackman’s company putting up the production budget, GRIDLOCKED sticks pretty much indoors in a bland concrete warehouse somewhere in Toronto (some actors’ accents are distracting). What’s odd is there’s no reason for Hackman to be in it. After the first act, the film becomes a typical ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 knockoff with good cops fending off bad cops in a police station, and the relationship between Hackman and Purcell becomes superfluous. The action scenes are performed better than in most films of this ilk, and Lang is a strong antagonist. Hackman, who wears a continuously dopey look on his face, and Purcell — perpetually dyspeptic — aren’t exactly the Sunshine Boys, but thrown into the lively old-school action, GRIDLOCKED’ll do as a quickie Redbox rental. Believe it or not, one actor is named James A. Woods.

Mission Mars

Another cheap science fiction movie by the director who made SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS? What could go wrong (I ask sarcastically)?

Well, we could start with the cloying ballad sung by Sturg Pardalis (!) that opens 1968's MISSION MARS — a gurgling mess that definitely does not put the audience in the mood for thrilling space opera. Aside from the song, the film’s first ten minutes consist only of grainy NASA stock footage and three (!) different scenes of astronaut wives sobbing to the heroes how much they’ll miss them. Again, not exactly setting the stage for adventure.

Appropriately for a movie co-written by Aubrey Wisberg, who penned bad ‘50s monster movies like CAPTIVE WOMEN and THE NEANDERTHAL MAN, MISSION MARS feels woefully outdated for a 1968 release, rehashing story points and characterization from films more than a decade old and failing to freshen them for an audience that would watch Americans walk on the moon a year later. The astronauts grimacing during liftoff? Check. Meteor storm? Check. Walking on Mars with a glass shield over their space helmets that doesn’t connect to their suits? Yep. Amateurish special effects shots haplessly recycled? Of course.

At least MISSION MARS didn’t hurt the careers of its two big stars. Darren McGavin, best known as night stalker Kolchak, continued a busy career as a TV guest star and occasional leading man of note. And Nick Adams was already dead by the time MISSION MARS was released, though it can be argued the film was no step down from his previous star turns in MONSTER ZERO and FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD (it is though). The rest of the cast seems to be local Florida actors (director Nicholas Webster lensed the movie at Miami’s Studio City) or perhaps friends of the director.

Mike Blaiswick (McGavin) leads a three-man crew, including geologist Grant (Adams) and pilot Duncan (George DeVries), on an eighteen-month round trip to Mars on the rocket Mars One. By the time they actually touch down to begin Act Three, you may have already drifted off. If you’re still watching, however, you’ll get to see the film’s only touches of imagination. Mars is replicated through cardboard STAR TREK-style stages (though without Gerald Perry Finnerman’s evocative lighting) and phony tabletop miniatures (usually the same two shots shown over and over). The first thing Webster does when the movie gets there is shoot interminable scenes of the astronauts filling balloons.

However. Are you still hanging in there? Finally, something happens. Grant encounters a dead cosmonaut, still standing and frozen solid. (“Can you get him back to the ship?” McGavin asks. How Adams is able to carry a frozen corpse that distance, we’ll never know.) Blaiswick and Duncan encounter real live Martians, which are cheaply constructed, but at least unusual-looking creatures that shoot beams from stalks. In the film’s one genuinely unsettling moment, a creature burns the eyes out of one of the astronauts and magnetically drags his corpse into a mysterious sphere.

That part aside, MISSION MARS is a terrible movie, sunk by a script with too few ideas and a production with too little money to make those ideas pay off. McGavin and Adams, pros both, play the danger straight, probably not knowing how silly the menaces they were pretending to react to would look on the screen.

The Mutilator

“By sword/by pick/by axe/bye bye!” If nothing else, THE MUTILATOR, an independent slasher movie produced in North Carolina by writer/director Buddy Cooper, must be lauded for its clever marketing tagline. Shot as FALL BREAK on a 29-day shooting schedule and $650,000 budget by a first-timer with no experience in filmmaking, THE MUTILATOR begins bizarrely and a bit sloppily with a little boy accidentally blowing away his mother (characters played by Cooper’s son and wife) with his dad’s shotgun.

Fast forward about a decade later and Ed (Matt Mitler) is a college student bored on fall break. When Dad (Jack Chatham) calls and demands Ed come down and close up the family beach condo for winter, Ed brings five school pals along for what they hope to be a fun vacation of sex and drinking and sex. It turns into a not-so-fun vacation of drownings and slashings and decapitations with grisly makeup effects by Mark Shostrom (EVIL DEAD II), Anthony Showe (CHOPPING MALL), and Ed Ferrell (THE SUPERNATURALS). The killer’s identity is no mystery and revealed early, unfortunately removing some suspense from the film. It’s Ed Senior, whose nights are plagued by disturbing nightmares of murdering his son as a little boy.

Cooper is an odd duck. Some of his shots are artfully composed, yet his opening titles play over an inappropriately upbeat theme song that sounds like it’s from a sitcom ABC cancelled after four weeks. On the whole, Cooper’s direction is quite poor with pacing and generating excitement not in his skill set. The actors are terrible at best and obnoxious at worst, though that’s hardly unusual for a horror film or any film by an amateur. Cooper at least knew what his core audience wanted to see, delivering a bit of female nudity and so much gore that the MPAA later demanded cuts to receive an R for its extended theatrical release.

To no one’s surprise, none of the cast members had spectacular careers, though Mitler had a starring role in the unbelievable New York science fiction movie BREEDERS. Ben Moore from Herschell Gordon Lewis’ 1960s films appears as a cop who meets a gruesome ending. Bill Hitchcock’s Ralph, the film’s ersatz comic relief, ranks among the most loathsome characters ever seen in a horror movie, and that includes the serial killers. Cooper, who returned to running the family motel business in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, never directed another film.

The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

It says a lot about THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE’s reputation that Hollywood has remade it twice, even though it isn’t the most well-known ‘70s thriller among casual filmgoers. Its plot may be standard heist stuff, but the clever screenplay by CHARADE’s Peter Stone, based on a Morton Freedgood (as John Godey) novel, isn’t at all standard, peppering the sharp dialogue and crystal-clear characterizations with cynical humor (“Screw the passengers! What the hell do they expect for their lousy 35 cents — to live forever?”). Joseph Sargent’s direction is crisp and tight, making certain not to waste a frame on anything that doesn’t contribute to telling the story.

New York City Transit Authority Lieutenant Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau, who did this after CHARLEY VARRICK and THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN) is having a bad afternoon. After giving a guided tour of the subway system to four visiting Japanese dignitaries who (he believes) don’t speak English, Garber returns to his station to discover a subway car containing 18 hostages—the Pelham 123—has been hijacked by four machine-gun-toting terrorists, including case-of-the-sniffles-carrying Mr. Green (Martin Balsam), hotheaded ex-mobster Mr. Grey (Hector Elizondo), and ice-cold former mercenary Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw).

Mr. Blue, the group’s leader, allows Garber one hour to deliver $1 million in old fifties and hundies, or he’ll begin killing a John Rocker nightmare of diverse hostages, which includes a jive-talking black man, a couple of screaming kids, an Hispanic woman who definitely doesn’t understand English, an undercover policeman, some hippies, and an old Jew. John Rocker would definitely not enjoy this ride.

Harried civil servants routinely rant, curse, and scream at each other, and their tension turns to apoplexy when Mr. Blue and crew toss a monkey wrench into their daily routine. Many of the jabs at The System and New York’s political structure are broad, but the fine cast of character actors makes them work. Matthau is completely believable as a dedicated cop trying to match wits with an adversary much smarter and deadlier than the muggers and pushers he usually deals with in the subway. His work is equaled by Shaw, who leaves no doubt Mr. Blue will do exactly as he says he’ll do if his instructions are not followed to the letter.

Actual New York City locations are well used. Although a disclaimer at the end claims the NYC Transit Authority did not participate in the making of PELHAM, it’s clear that Sargent (JAWS: THE REVENGE) would not have been able to create the tense atmosphere that he does without using real subway cars and tunnels. Cinematographer Owen Roizman (THE FRENCH CONNECTION) handles the dark, dank underground photography quite well, while David Shire’s funky musical score contributes to the film’s gritty feel. And who can deny PELHAM boasts one of the greatest final shots in film history?

The supporting cast also includes future FAMILY star James Broderick, Earl Hindman (later to be Tim Allen’s half-hidden neighbor on HOME IMPROVEMENT), Dick O’Neill, Kenneth McMillan, Doris Roberts (EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND), the solid black presence Julius Harris (LIVE AND LET DIE) as a police inspector (Matthau, upon meeting Harris for the first time after speaking to him over the radio, stammers, “Er, I thought you were a, uh, taller person, oh, hell, I don’t know what I thought.”), Jerry Stiller (very funny as Matthau’s partner), Sal Viscuso, and a nice bit by Tony Roberts as the deputy mayor.

The Condemned 2

Another failed attempt by WWE Studios to find the next Dwayne Johnson, this braindead sequel stars pro wrestler Randy Orton, who previously worked with director Roel Reine in 12 ROUNDS 2. THE CONDEMNED 2 is the kind of movie where a guy lures another guy to the desert in the middle of nowhere to invite him to have a drink, so he can kill him in a crowded cantina.

Reine, a specialist in direct-to-video sequels (such as the DEATH RACE sequels), is as good as anybody working regularly in the genre who isn’t Isaac Florentine, and he and screenwriter Alan McElroy (WRONG TURN) deserve credit for not simply repeating the beats from THE CONDEMNED. Reine likes explosions and putting his actors near them, which amps up the suspense. Unfortunately, the script is dumb and forces the characters to do dumb things just to get the film to the next plot point or setpiece.

Orton stars as a former bounty hunter named Will Tanner serving a suspended sentence for killing bail jumper Wes Studi (PENNY DREADFUL) in self defense. Having given up the family business left to him by dad Eric Roberts (STAR 80), Tanner is happy with his new non-violent life as a tow truck driver until his old buddies show up one day and try to kill him. All were threatened by Raul (Steven Michael Quezada, the actor you hire when you can’t afford Wes Studi for more than one day), who has invited rich jerks in tuxedos and cocktail dresses to an abandoned factory to gamble on Tanner’s life expectancy. One of many lazy plotholes is why these hardass bounty hunters are so afraid of Raul, who isn’t big and scary and threatening.

Also, given that Raul has Tanner to thank for his new fortune and stature, due to his moving up in the ranks when Studi died, the revenge motive seems thin. But this is a movie where a guy hands Tanner a convenient map to Raul’s location just before trying to kill him (what would a dead Tanner need with a map?), so writing it wasn’t a priority for the filmmakers. Neither was acting, as Orton is just about a complete failure as a leading man. Unable to express even the tiniest of emotions, he also seems clumsy in the action scenes. The New Mexico desert is a nice contrast to the lush forests of Australia seen in THE CONDEMNED, and this sequel is thankfully less meanspirited than the original.

Big Trouble In Little China

If you were to ask fans of BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, particularly those who didn’t see it theatrically in 1986, to hazard a guess at its box office gross, I suspect almost all of them would guess high. Director John Carpenter’s follow-up to the very good but conventional (and Oscar-nominated) science fiction romance STARMAN falls into several genres: action/adventure, fantasy, comedy, martial arts, romance. Inspired by wuxia films popular in Hong Kong at the time (though not well distributed in the United States), the subversive BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA debuted at #12 (!) at the July 4 weekend boxoffice and quickly faded from movie screens. Like THE THING and THEY LIVE — other Carpenter films that were unfairly ignored at the time of their original release — BIG TROUBLE has, over the years, evolved into one of the director’s most popular films.

And rightly so. An imaginative adventure film packed with funny lines, amusing performances, and colorful visual effects supervised by Richard Edlund (STAR WARS), BIG TROUBLE is seen through the eyes of Everyman Jack Burton, a somewhat dullwitted truck driver who somehow falls into battle with a 2000-year-old Chinese godfather with magical powers played by James Hong (NINJA III: THE DOMINATION). The screenplay by Gary Goldman (TOTAL RECALL), David Z. Weinstein, and W.D. Richter (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) is clever and involved, but never too complicated.

Basically, Burton and his friend Wang Chi (MIDNIGHT CALLER regular Dennis Dun) enter the mysterious underground of San Francisco’s Chinatown to rescue Wang’s fiancee Miao Yen (Suzee Pai) from bandits with super-human powers and martial arts skills. Accompanied by attorney Gracie Law (SEX AND THE CITY’s Kim Cattrall), wizard Egg Shen (Victor Wong), and other friends, Wang and Burton discover that evil Lo Pan (Hong) needs to marry the green-eyed Miao in order to release himself from a curse and become mortal again.

Not that anything is basic about BIG TROUBLE, which plays like a true American original, despite its cribbing from Asian culture. Carpenter packs the film with sensational action and martial arts sequences with 1970s Hong Kong movie star Carter Wong nearly stealing the picture as Lo Pan’s impressively intense right hand. However, nobody can truly steal BIG TROUBLE from Kurt Russell, performing without ego as a swaggering wannabe tough guy who’s seen too many John Wayne movies and can’t quite keep up with his boasting mouth. A fish out of water in a strange society where sorcery and ancient myths are real, Burton is the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on. The joy in Russell’s performance, however, is that Burton also pretends that he does. Russell isn’t quite parodying action heroes, but it’s close and it’s a delight.