The follow up to “Zapped!” obviously wants to be thought of as a legacy follow up to the original Scott Baio movie but has none of the budget to pull off the fantasy we saw in the original. There almost seems to be no budget for our main character Kevin to pull off the infamous mind tricks, so a lot of his powers involve moving things very slowly with his minds, and often making people slap themselves. Even in the climax where we know we’ll see a reproduction of the original film’s climax, people instead rip their own clothes off rather than have the clothes ripped off by the main character. Pretty much a sequel in name only, “Zapped Again!” stars Todd Eric Andrews as Kevin.
Tag Archives: Fantasy
Top Five Favorite Moments in 1990’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”
In 1990, just two days after TMNT 1990 premiered in theaters, my dad took my brother and me to see it in theaters in Manhattan one afternoon. It was just the three of us in what felt like a humongous theater, draped in the dark as the Turtles my brother and I worshipped finally jumped on to the screen after saving April O’Neil from being killed by the Foot Clan.
While I don’t particularly love the current cinematic incarnations of the TMNT, I hope there are kids out there getting the same awe inducing experience with “TMNT: Out of the Shadows” as I did when I was seven. “TMNT ‘90” still holds up very well today, with some excellent action set pieces, great humor, and so many quotable moments. Here are only five of my favorite moments in a movie filled with some banner scenes.
Evil Bong High-5 (2016)
Do you see what happens when you let interns make a movie with petty cash on the weekends? You come up with “Evil Bong High-5.” It’s a stoner movie that’s so bad even stoners will eventually shut it off because it’s destroying their high. At only seventy minutes long, this is a movie that literally stops dead in its tracks in order to advertise the company’s brand of painfully unfunny ethnic stereotype dolls. One of the many sequels apparently breaking even enough for another installment, Eebee the Evil Bong is back and she’s just as mean as ever. Now that she’s trapped a small group of people in The Bong World, alongside the Gingerdead Man, they have to figure out a way home.
The Angry Birds Movie (2016)
I’ll just openly admit that I never played “Angry Birds.” I know it was a popular game three years ago, used on cell phones that involved animated birds being hurled in to crap, and now for some reason it’s a movie. It’s a movie that’s filled with loud noises, a warbling pop soundtrack, bright colors, and still manages to bore successfully. You can argue that this is a movie for kids, so it was obvious I wouldn’t like it. But I refuse the premise of your argument and no longer accept that cheap excuse. Kids are not this stupid. The last few years have proven kids can be given complex and rich entertainment and appreciate it completely.
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
At the end of the day, “X-Men Apocalypse” is a big step up from the films in the series that preceded it, but it’s still just a Bryan Singer “X-Men” movie. Its two and a half hours of surface level action and superficial ideas that still haven’t broken in to the more complex themes of prejudice, racism, hatred, and bigotry that have made the X-Men property so beloved and widely embraced. Six movies later and only now FOX seems to be getting that a big advantage of the “X-Men” movies is that there are so many fascinating heroes and average people turned in to heroes of varied shapes, sizes, and colors. Only now that Marvel has embraced the team movie are Singer and FOX transforming the “X-Men” in to a team franchise.
Bump in the Night: The Complete Series (DVD)
Rejoice “Bump in the Night” fans, Mill Creek has re-released the entire series of your beloved stop motion animated series on DVD. Every single episode is included in the new release, including the once rare episodes like “Night of the Living Bread” and “Twas the Night Before Bumpy.” Every single frame is included from every episode, so you can breathe easily, and pop in your DVD’s to celebrate one of the many misunderstood animated gems of the nineties.
Zapped! (1982) (DVD)
It’s pretty fun to see Scott Baio and Willie Aames team up in what would be one of their many endeavors in “Zapped!” Baio was fresh off of “Happy Days,” Aames was off of “Eight is Enough,” they were a few years away from the comedy gold of “Charles in Charges” and decades away from being the douche bags we know today. It was an interesting time where Baio and pal Aames delved in to the sex comedy. “Zapped!” attempts to be as outrageous as silly as possible, but only really ends as a somewhat mediocre comedic effort that doesn’t do much with the premise it hands us.