“Battledogs,”is a film that demonstrates the fine art of retooling a movie and having a good time doing it. In this instance, Writer Phillip Van Dyke retreads 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk” but tailors it more for werewolves. Every plot device and moment in the film is shamelessly derived from the 2008 action film. Hell, there’s even a moment where one of the infected humans is kicked out of a helicopter in mid-air and sent crashing in to the Earth as it transforms in to the rabid werewolf.
Mick Garris’ 1994 cinematic adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand is one half a great epic post apocalyptic tale of human endurance, and one half a preachy and overwrought religious tale about God, the Devil, and a lot of hokey sermonizing that falls flat. Which is not to say it bogs down the film, but as King is noted for, “The Stand” eventually devolves in to religious hokum that completely eliminates the appeal of the original story.
I respect Cormac McCarthy for exploring the less stylish side of the apocalypse. While many modern fictional outlets have given a real sense of sensationalism to the end of the world, “The Road” is an often uncompromising, cruel, and disturbing look at the end of civilization. It’s a world full of cowards, a world where humans prey on one another out of desperation for food, and it’s a world where there’s literally no hope. The world is dying all around a man and his son, and the pair can do nothing but hold tighter together and spend every waking hour looking for food. Viggo Mortensen who plays the man known by his son as simply papa is a haggard shell with dirty nails, stained teeth, and a gradually fading health, while his son spends most of the story taking on the weight of the world. And yet, even when confronted with the worst of human cruelty, he can not find the worst in humanity. He wants to believe there’s still some good in the world.
What if the blob was a sentient being with a massive ego? That’s basically the summation of “Phantoms,” a film that alternates from tedious, to goofy, to downright silly quite often. The tonal shifting often affects “Phantoms” turning it from a mediocre horror film to just a downright idiotic horror film with no semblance of common sense. Why does every single monster or being with a consciousness suddenly turn in to a comedian when they have the upper hand? Freddy Krueger turned from a specter in to a clown, Pinhead began spewing puns suddenly, and during the finale of “Phantoms,” the being begins spouting one-liners like it’s going out of style. In the midst of possessing Liev Schreiber’s character, the monster screeches with a half body “How low can you go?!” as it chases our heroines through a house slithering along the ground.
Yeah, this is why studios didn’t take comic book movie seriously for a very long time. “Tank Girl” is god awful. I’m aware her comic is very popular, and Tank Girl the character is considered something of a feminist icon of a sorts, but “Tank Girl” is swill. It’s bottom feeding swill. It tries to exude this sense of hipness and edge, but instead feels like it doesn’t take the material seriously. Lori Petty (who has the charm of a spastic Ritalin addict) attempts to play the sexually ambiguous Tank Girl as tongue in cheek but she just comes off as a clown who has no grasp on the material.
So you can’t call her babe. That’s where she draws the line. She responds violently to those who call her babe. But… what about boobs? Jugs? Mammary Madam? Chesty? How about Baby? It’s kind of like Babe, but not really. It’s a shame because the original comic book from Dark Horse called “Barb Wire” sounds like it could be a fun action film. A busty blond heroine addicted to adrenaline who fights crime from the heart of her night club could be a great film overall. Instead, the producers cast a popular model turned actress in the guise of Pamela Anderson, spend most of the film focusing on her enhanced bust to compensate for her sheer lack of acting ability, and basically just remake “Casablanca” and call it a day.
It just goes to show that just because something is cool on paper, it doesn’t mean it’ll be scooped up by children. By 1994, pretty much every studio were looking for their own “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” take off that could grant them instant success. Since the eighties and most of the nineties belonged ot the heroes in a halfshell, most of the animated studios looked for their own spin on the formula. There were at least dozen clones of the Ninja Turtles once the Ninja Turtles took off. One of them was “Street Sharks.”