Popcorn Heroines of the Fin de Siecle
While the '80s was an era of steroidal posturing and feminist backlash, the '90s was the age of tough, take-charge heroes who were strong, who were invincible, who were WOMAN. But alas, they were women like Carmen Electra or Sandra Bullock, who proudly refused to make coffee for any man, largely because they had trouble with the recipe. And if the hero of the '90s wasn't a standup girl like Sandra or a jut-out girl like Carmen, she was a CIA psychic combating killer motorcycles from outer space (our research indicates this was the case in 33% of the following three movies). And while this kind of heroine may have been played by a nobody who probably got the part because of her "will act for food" sign, she nonetheless represents the high point of '90s action stars--the kind who never made a sequel.
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THE CHOSEN ONE: LEGEND OF THE RAVEN (1998) Directed by: Lawrence Lanoff Written by: Sam Rappaport, Khara Bromiley |
This movie is a veritable melting pot of plagiarism--from the title, which sounds like a rare collaboration between Chaim Potok and Edgar Allen Poe, to the star, Carmen Electra, who sounds like a Bizet opera of a Eugene O'Neill play. Get ready to spend the next 87 minutes of your life squinting into a Déjà Vu-master.
This rip-off of The Crow starts with a rip-off of Star Wars, as a block of scrolling text entitled "Episode One: Renewed Hope" informs us that "Good" (embodied by big-breasted women with pubic hair sculpted like topiary) will do battle with "Evil" (represented by the statutes against copyright infringement).
Playboy Playmate Shauna Sand is digging up an ancient tribal talisman that will endow her with superhuman powers. True to the legend, the necklace grants Shauna the highly photogenic ability to counter-rotate her breasts while running; but before she can use her new power to fight crime, she's killed by an evil redneck named Cole.
Shauna's death forces her estranged sister Carmen to return to their ancestral home, Knott's Berry Farm. She immediately picks a fight with her wizened Native American dad, Popi, and is reunited with her true love, Henry, a Sheriff's Deputy who makes Barney Fife look like Buford Pusser. Carmen is furious that Barney is living with trailer tramp Nora, while Barney resents Carmen for ditching him years ago to join the Marines. Yes, as this movie demonstrates, the Corps is turning out a different breed of grunt these days; in addition to the grueling ordeal of boot camp, recruits now receive an additional eight weeks of intensive training at the Barbizon School.
Popi presents Carmen with the super-powered tribal necklace. Shauna's ghost appears, dressed in gravity-defying post-mortem lingerie from the Victoria's Sepulcher collection, and announces that Carmen has been chosen to combat evil.
Her first act as a mystical, crime-fighting superheroine is to wash the dishes with her tongue. But this is only the beginning of her metamorphosis.
The necklace has endowed Carmen with the power to make her hair really pouffy, which she uses to lure Barney into a sex scene with her body double.
Meanwhile, the murderous redneck is holed up in a shack with two other mentally challenged crackers. They've got a big ol' still and, like most gun-toting hillbillies, are using it to make Windex. Hopped up on cleaning fluid, Cole takes a personal inventory and resolves to reconcile with his former lover Nora, the current trailer mate of Deputy Fife. When Barney objects, Nora beats him up and leaves him bleeding and dazed on the ground. Then Cole urinates on him, which excites Nora so much that she and Cole have implied sex in a pickup truck.
They dump Barney in Carmen's yard, after first taking him to the face-painting booth at the Iowa State Fair and getting him airbrushed like a raccoon. Shauna, the Victoria's Shroud model, shows up to remind Carmen that "you have the POWER," which inspires Carmen to wave her hands and make Barney's face paint disappear. So, apparently, the talisman has also endowed her with the power of cold cream.
Popi starts doing voice-overs, and informs us that Carmen's "powers were growing faster than her understanding." But then, so were her toenails.
Meanwhile, the Windex bootleggers are shooting trees, when Carmen suddenly shows up and takes a bullet in the arm (thereby demonstrating her fast-growing power to attract gunfire).
She runs away, and the rednecks chase her into a night scene as Carmen reveals her awesome power of Bad Continuity. The Chosen One flails ineffectually at her tormentors with a shovel until they shoot her, thereby demonstrating her power to die stupidly. Then Cole shoots and kills Nora, because he's too embarrassed to break up with her again.
Later that night, the two women are raised from the dead by the power of Carmen's accessories. Nora has turned into The Wolf, a creature whose evil lupine nature is betrayed by her predatory bloodlust and her tendency to curl up on the rug and lick her own genitals.
Finally, Carmen dons her superheroine costume: a backless silver lamé jumpsuit with see-through knee-high boots. Her ensemble is topped off by a stainless steel catcher's mask with vertical blades that curve so far past her chin that the first time she looks down, she'll give herself a tracheotomy. This creates an almost unbearable air of tension, as the viewer waits for Carmen's enemies to cry out, "Hey, your shoe's untied!"
The Wolf arrives in HER costume (which, in keeping with the plot, is assembled from other peoples' castoffs: Elvira's dress, Audrey Hepburn's cocktail gloves from Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Clayton Moore's Lone Ranger mask).
Carmen begins the explosive climax by walking into a western saloon and uttering her now-famous battle-cry, "Hello, Scumbag!" This inspires The Wolf to promptly kick her ass. Fortunately, Barney arrives in the nick of time to save her. He bursts through the door, cocks his shotgun, and declares, "It's over!" Then somebody shoots him and he promptly dies.
Popi pops back up to tell us that Carmen must call upon "her most formidable power--the power to transform time and space." She uses it to transport herself and her nemesis to the set of a Warrant video, where the two of them have a fierce nipple-jutting contest. (Carmen wins by a millimeter.)
Carmen is now The Raven, and asks Deputy Fife to join her in her crusade against evil. As they drive into the sunset, they consider new sidekick names for him. Pigeon Boy, perhaps? Maybe The Bleeder. How about Easily Maimed Man...?
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MURDERCYCLE (1999) Directed by: Tom Calloway Written by: Daniel Elliot |
(Note: All the characters in this film are named after comic-book artists of the '60s and '70s: Kirby, Lee, Ditko, etc. This conceit is not essential to the plot; we mention it only because knowing this fact makes the movie considerably more irritating.)
A meteorite falls to earth, and a passing motorcyclist pauses to investigate. The extraterrestrial rock bursts open, and badly animated tentacles reach out and grab the rider, hideously transforming him from a human being into a human being with model airplane parts stuck to his clothes. His vehicle, meanwhile, has metamorphosed from a typical Yamaha into a fearsome alien killing machine with tarpaper roofing shingles and latex enema hoses glued to it.
A CIA agent assigned to a nearby top-secret facility is attacked by the Murdercycle--apparently in the midst of posing for the J. Crew fall catalogue. The Murdercycle shoots the CIA man with a laser, which causes him to talk like William Shatner.
The next day, a Marine Corps sergeant who resembles a slightly tougher-looking Gomer Pyle is sitting half-naked in a mobile home with a 9mm automatic. He starts to reenact Mel Gibson's suicide attempt from Lethal Weapon when there's a knock at the door, and he's summoned to a meeting with the big brass at Camp Abraham Lincoln Junior High School.
One of the CIA's top J. Crew models is missing, and Lethal Gomer has been picked to lead a crack squad consisting of two other guys to investigate. They are accompanied by Dr. Lee, a government psychic who was apparently recruited from the "Ringlets Can Spice Up a Dowdy 'Do" pictorial in YM. Commanding the mission is another CIA agent, Mr. Wood, who is presently undercover on the cover of GQ.
Psychic Friend Dr. Lee is concerned about their chances for success. She realizes that Lethal Gomer is unstable, because he wears the dog tags of his Longtime Companion, a Marine who was killed in a Gulf War operation that went tragically wrong when it was accidentally conducted in Griffith Park.
The team approaches the top-secret facility. Suddenly, MC Yamaha is in the house! He roars toward the squad, shoots one of them with his amazingly ineffective laser, and putters off.
Lethal Gomer demands to know what's going on. Reluctantly, GQ confesses that the facility is actually a high-tech listening post. . . "And certain foreign powers," he intones ominously, "would kill to get their hands on this equipment." (Which appears to consist of a graphic equalizer, an 8-track, and a See-and-Spell.)
The Murdercycle returns and rides around while they all shoot at him, but their bullets have absolutely no effect. So they do it again. And again. Then, for a change of pace, the director cuts to some pastoral scenes of the Murdercycle cruising down country lanes while the theme to Shaka Zulu plays.
Then it's back to our movie, as Lethal Gomer's squad shoots their ineffective bullets at the Murdercycle, while he shoots his ineffective lasers at them. Finally, Lethal Gomer demands to know exactly what GQ is hiding, and orders Dr. Lee to read the CIA agent's mind. But he thwarts her psychic probe by singing the "Sobbin' Women" number from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
Eventually, GQ breaks down and reveals a secret underground bunker housing an extraterrestrial softball locked in a high-security microwave oven. The softball holds the sum of all human knowledge, except for the information contained in Syd Field's book, Screenplay.
Another, less photogenic CIA agent breaks into the microwave and surreptitiously removes the softball so he can heat up his breakfast burrito.
There's some minor treachery, and a lot more shooting. Finally, the day is saved when Dr. Lee beans the Murdercyclist with the alien softball and, instead of advancing to first base, he explodes.
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SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL (1997) Directed by: Jan de Bont Written by: Jan de Bont (story), Randall McCormick |
As this sequel begins, Annie (Sandra Bullock) explains to DMV driving tester Tim Conway that she broke up with her Speed 1 boyfriend because he gave her pepper spray and she thought it was perfume. Yes, Annie is still plucky and perky and spunky, but she really should see the Wizard about a brain.
While Annie chatters on to Tim about her new beau (who is NOT into dangerous stuff, like her last guy), her driving endangers the lives of everyone in her path. She smashes her way into a dangerous high-speed chase being conducted by LAPD SWATer Alex (Jason Patric), only to learn that her safe, cozy boyfriend is . . . Alex!
"I don't even know you!" she rages, upset that he was an action hero behind her back. But Alex pulls out tickets to a Caribbean cruise, and we cut to . . .
The Love Boat, where Gopher is showing Annie and Alex to their cabin. They are interrupted by the cruise's designated actor, Geiger (Willem Dafoe), who demands that his golf balls be found NOW! When Alex and Annie go up on deck, Alex notes that there is a golf tournament on TV, but Geiger isn't watching it! Geiger is no golfer! Alex has cracked the case!
Geiger, of course, is a super-villain, and in requisite super-villain fashion, he has a pet that he talks to. But all the good pets were taken, so Geiger's stuck with pet leeches, which he keeps in his bathtub. Also, his golf balls are bombs, and he has a FIBER-OPTIC CONVERTER. Clearly, he is up to no good.
Alex and Annie go to the dining room, where we meet our Poseidon Adventure supporting cast members: the Fat Busters Conventioneers, pinch-hitting for Shelley Winters; and some jewelers, who brought along a billion-dollar diamond collection in an effort to score with Kate Winslet. Geiger's plan is to blow up a few golf balls, steal the diamonds, and crash the ship into a cliff.
At the first sign of trouble, Alex is champing at the bit to do brave stuff. After he heroically saves the people in the last lifeboat from escaping, he informs the crew that Geiger is controlling the ship with his ThinkPad, and suggests that they shoot him (Geiger, I mean--although shooting Alex would have been MY suggestion). But Geiger is one step ahead of them, and has left his cabin! He taunts them via video camera, saying something about their fathers being hamsters.
Annie, who thought SHE was the hero of this film, goes looking for her own people to save. She locates the fat folks, who are trapped in their room--and stripping so they can use their clothing to block fumes coming in from the vents. Annie knows she has to hurry, because we don't want to see THIS go any further!
Meanwhile, remembering that Keanu Reeves shot a hostage in Speed 1 to prevent a kidnapping, Alex comes up with the idea of sinking the ship to keep it from crashing, thereby proving the law of diminishing returns.
Geiger's laptop computer, HAL, tells him Alex has thwarted Evil Plan A, so Geiger switches to Plan B--crashing the ship into an oil tanker. Then he takes Annie hostage and flees on a speedboat that was somehow just there.
Alex manages to avert the collision (it involves holding his breath for a long time), but now they are headed for St. Maarten's harbor! The rogue ship plows into the town, smashing the pier, the boardwalk, some condos, and a telephone booth. It seems that ocean liners demolishing towns must be pretty common in these parts, because nobody pays much attention until the ship actually taps them on the shoulder and says "Boo!" It hits a church and finally comes to a halt, since, as we all know, cruise ships can only be stopped by crucifixes. So the movie is over, right? Alas, no, because Alex still has to rescue Annie, who is trying to sneak off the set to go do Hope Floats.
Alex hijacks a cigarette boat from some Jamaican guy and his date, and they head off in hot pursuit of Geiger, who has abandoned his speedboat for a seaplane. Then, in homage to Herman Melville, Alex harpoons the plane and pulls himself aboard. Geiger's plane gets impaled on the oil tanker, he laughs maniacally (Top of the world, ma!), and the tanker and the plane blow up real good.
Alex and Annie, who fell out of the plane before it exploded, sink into the ocean. Jamaican Guy, who is apparently there to explain the action to the less intelligent audience members, says "I hope they can hold their breaths a long time. Don't run out of air!" Jamaican Girlfriend adds, "Me thinks they're dead." Me wish they were. Instead, they find Geiger's bag of diamonds, Alex gives Annie an engagement ring, and they kiss. The End.
Except now we're back in the car with Annie and Tim Conway, and it's cruelly apparent that this movie has more false climaxes than a Long Island housewife.
What will the action movie hero of the '00s be like? It is our expert opinion, based on the trends we have identified from the past twenty years, that the hero of future popcorn movies will be strong enough for a man, but made for a woman; tough enough to make a tender chicken, but now with wings! Oh, and not very bright, kind of ineffectual, and with pouffy hair. So, in conclusion, we predict that the action hero for the New Millennium is going to be Richard Simmons.
