Reviews

Wilderness family movies are almost invariably packed full of threadbare coincidences, improbable plot twists, and out-and-out violations of physical law. In that respect, this film is only typical of the genre. In many other respects, it is distinctly sub-par. The previous reviewer has already commented on the overuse of the narrator (who sounded a bit like Denver Pyle, but probably wasn't). To make matters worse, this ostensibly omniscient observer seems perpetually confused about exactly where his characters live. First he settles them in the Yukon. Then he moves them to Alaska (a different place, honest). Then he sends one of them on a trek to the Hudson's Bay Trading Post (definitely not in Alaska). Maybe their cabin straddles the border between the Yukon and Alaska, but this is never clarified.

Of course, a film like this can be picked to pieces by anyone with the time and inclination. Here are a few of the other errors and incongruities that I happened to notice in a single viewing:

1. The last I heard, there are no rattlesnakes in either Alaska or the Yukon. 2. The allegedly recently born bear cub (first snow he's ever seen) appears to be at least a year old, and possibly older. 3. The year is supposedly 1898 (not 1798), so why is Ezra carrying a flintlock rifle and powder horn? A family heirloom, perhaps? 4. The family sets out from Edmonton, Alberta with a single pack horse, which does not appear to be overloaded. Nevertheless, when they arrive at the purportedly abandoned cabin, the garrulous narrator informs us that they have brought provisions for the entire summer, including 350 pounds of flour, as well as bacon, beans and other goodies. To this must be added bedding, clothing, cooking utensils, pots and pans, as well as tools, prospecting equipment, and even a case of dynamite. Not to mention all the other items I've probably forgotten. All that on a single horse? I doubt even a Clydesdale could have carried all that stuff from Edmonton to the Yukon (or Alaska) single-handedly. 5. I don't care how "lucky" he thinks he is, what kind of dumb damn greenhorn cheechako would take his wife and child to the Great White North without even bothering to pack winter coats for the three of them? (And he supposedly researched the matter thoroughly.)

Well, enough of this. On to the nude scene. Since the family didn't bring along any winter clothing, naturally winter sets in early, and the ever-loquacious narrator remarks that baths are becoming increasingly difficult to manage. Then a conveniently located hot spring comes to light, and while greed-crazed Ezra is out digging for gold, mom and junior decide to go skinny dipping together. However, those of a prurient inclination should not get their hopes up too high. Despite the scandalous implications and clearly affectionate physical contact betwixt the two of them, the whole thing comes off pretty much as innocent as it was probably intended to be. No naughty bits are visible, no incestuous intentions are evident, and they even have the bear along as a chaperone.

Digiview Entertainment. What won't these fellows do for a buck? In recent years, their name has very nearly become almost sort of synonymous with the preservation of such unparalleled cinematic treasures as "King of Kong Island", "Hercules Against the Moon Men" and "The Guy with Secret Kung Fu". So obviously they're good for a laugh, and a cheap laugh at that. They actually leave you enough money to buy a halfway decent brand of beer to go with the movie.

Having said that, I am obliged to admit that I was a little disappointed with this offering. Judging from previous reviews, I am not alone in this opinion. Others have already commented on the lackluster gaggle of characters (and their utter lack of chemistry), the relative paucity of action, and the infuriatingly protracted dialogue, some of which rivals anything Bulwer-Lytton might have scribbled down in his cups, even on the darkest and stormiest of nights. Under the circumstances, a bit more of the bad guys would have been a welcome escape from the good guys, but we actually see very little of the bad guys in this movie. The CG dragon only appears in a couple of all-too-brief sequences, and the dark elves alluded to on the cover seem to be little more than an afterthought. If you're going to subject someone to the indignity (not to mention the expense) of dressing up in a ridiculous outfit and having his face painted, the least you can do is leave him in front of the camera long enough for the audience to get a good look at him. This film desperately needed something, and a bit more of the dark elves might very well have done the trick. In addition to more screen presence, they should have been given a few simple lines. Even a pair of dark elves exchanging orcish pleasantries such as "Stop your squealing, you dunghill rat!" could have contributed an actual dimension to this insipid opus, with very little effect on the overall production costs. Oh, well. Maybe they'll have a better feel for the thing if they ever get around to doing Part 2. Better yet, maybe they'll never get around to doing Part 2.

This is another of those films from the 1960's that have apparently disappeared into the black hole that ought to have been reserved for some of the big-budget trash being made nowadays. It harks back to an era when halfway intelligent scripting and depth of characterization were deemed more important than brain-curdling eye candy and mindless special effects. And although not exactly what I would call a classic, it is nonetheless worthy of remembrance, at least among those of us elderly enough to remember it. Some of what follows may possibly be a bit of a spoiler, if there are any copies of this movie left to spoil, so be ye warned before reading further.

The film is based on an 1811 novella by Heinrich von Kleist, which in turn was based on the exploits of an actual fifteenth-century German horse trader named Hans Kohlhase. The story, in a nutshell, runs more or less as follows. On his way to market to sell his horses, Kohlhaas is intercepted by the minions of a nobleman named Tronka. He is informed that he is trespassing on Tronka's land, must pay a toll in order to continue, and winds up being forced to leave two of his horses behind as a surety. Upon returning to reclaim the horses, he finds that they have been maltreated and starved. Outraged, he seeks justice through official channels, but is stonewalled at every turn by the prevailing old-boy network. At length, his indignation erupts into violence. Brushing off advice to "just let it go," he takes up arms, gathers a band of similarly disenfranchised people, and starts an insurrection. In the end, of course, his insurrection is crushed, he is captured and condemned to die by one of the cruelest forms of execution ever devised: to be broken on the wheel.

Although fairly faithful to its original sources, the film does have a tendency to portray the character as a revolutionary, and at times even as a bit of a patriot and folk hero, rather than as the mere vengeful victim of injustice and local rabble-rouser that the real Kohlhase probably was. Nonetheless, the essential point of the story is not lost.

David Warner gives a typically intense performance as Kohlhaas. Whatever the character's motives may have been, the final scene of the film is unforgettable. Just before his execution, Kohlhaas learns that his case has finally been settled in his favor. His horses are returned to him in good condition, he says his goodbyes to them and sets them free. As he is hoisted aloft upon the wheel, broken and dying, he sees them galloping away across the plains and smiles contentedly.

The story of Michael Kohlhaas has certainly had some impact on later films. E. L. Doctorow was sufficiently inspired by it to adapt much of its thematic material to his novel (as well as the 1981 film) Ragtime, recasting the character of Kohlhaas as a black ragtime musician named Coalhouse Walker, who reacts similarly to an unredressed injury by a racist white policeman. And one can only wonder whether Mel Gibson was in any way influenced by it in his popular retelling of the story of William Wallace. Presumably Mel would know.

Let's face it, people, we are living in a DARK AGE. Illiteracy, ignorance and religious fanaticism are on the rise, and the arts are everywhere in decline. At best, the cinema was always a lesser art, but at least it once had some claim to be called one. Chaplin, Hitchcock, Ford, Welles, Bergman and Kurosawa are a few names that randomly come to mind. But now we are living in the age of Jerry Bruckheimer, who compares to any of the aforementioned luminaries in roughly the same way that Salieri's footman's chamber pot compares to Mozart. Yes, I know it's supposed to be mindless entertainment, and there has undoubtedly always been mindless entertainment of one kind or another, but how low can human beings descend before they start to devolve back into slugs?

I deliberately waited until the "trilogy" was finished (if it really is finished), and the dust settled, before uttering any comments, if only because I wanted to reflect upon which of the three films was the most idiotic. Unquestionably, that dubious honor has to go to this one. The first movie at least made some minimal sort of sense, perhaps in the same contorted way that an episode of Spongebob Squarepants makes sense. The second was little more than an incoherent mass of special effects, but at least it mostly obeyed the laws of general science, if not physics. But this one! Good god almighty! Saint Edward D. Wood, pray for us sinners in the hour of our lobotomization! So it turns out that the pirates live on a flat earth, and they go sailing off the edge to bring ol' Cap'n Jack back from the land of the dead. Then, in order to return to the land of the living, all they have to do is rock the boat until they flip it over? Really? I had no idea it could be that simple, or that death could be so impermanent. But it only gets worse. I can hardly bear to write about it. Brethren court? Pirate lords? Keith Richards on the way to his twentieth nervous breakdown? If Scheherezade had recited this nonsense to the sultan, he would have had her drawn and quartered on the spot. Please pinch me, slap me, drive nails into my head until I wake up. I used to play better stuff than this when I was three years old. The only "pirate lords" I ever heard of (or even imagined) are the ones that sit in the boardrooms of the corporations that control and periodically emit this kind of brain-shriveling rubbish, and the only "code" they seem to have is best summarized by the quote from the film given above.

Do yourself a favor. Read a book. Work a crossword puzzle. Go for a walk. Sit on the front porch and talk to your neighbor. But whatever you do, protect whatever may be left of your precious gray matter from movies like this. Turn it off right now. Turn it off and leave it off. Turn it off right in the middle of this very sentence I'm speaking.

Clearly this is a very difficult film, judging from the multitude of critics that have failed to comprehend its intricate fabric of multi-layered symbolism and rich, evocative imagery. That Ed Wood was an authentic American genius is altogether beyond dispute; and like most geniuses, he has continued to be subjected to the rancorous attacks of tiny minds unable to grasp the sheer enormity of his conceptions. That those conceptions, so lovingly crafted and nurtured to fruition, were largely ignored by the hormone-crazed drive-in theater audiences to which they were usually consigned, might have claimed the sanity of a lesser man. But for the peerless and indomitable Wood it was always truly "arse gratia artis," and it was this passionate commitment to artistic perfection that set him apart from his contemporaries. Even the inscrutable Federico Fellini was apparently so moved by Wood's work that he was reported to have cried out from his death-bed: "Merda! Son Morto!" Certainly there can be no greater tribute than this, from one dying artist to another.

"Plan 9 From Outer Space" is unquestionably the shining centerpiece of Wood's creative efforts. From the incisive opening comments by the impeccably urbane Criswell, we are transported into an unparalleled realm of cinematic poetry. The perpetually fog-shrouded cemetery is a metaphor for the murky depths of the human soul, while its cardboard tombstones evoke the fragility of man's earthly fame, even as the rapid transitions from day to night proclaim the transience of his earthly existence. And moving silently in the midst of this cosmic desolation, the always elegant Vampira is like the primal earth mother, gathering her wandering children to her bosom, while the brooding figure of Bela Lugosi strides endlessly to and fro, wrapped in unanswerable questions.

Veteran Swedish actor Tor Johnson (fresh from a string of triumphant performances as Charles the Wrestler in the Stratford Festival production of "As You Like It") is a standout in the technically demanding dual role of Inspector Daniel Clay/Fat Zombie. Who else could have injected such pathos, dignity and depth of meaning into such seemingly trivial lines as "I'm a big boy now, Johnny"--who but the man that (on two separate occasions) graciously declined the part of Antonius Block in "The Seventh Seal," thereby effectively launching the career of his hitherto unknown countryman, Max von Sydow? And who else could have risen so magnificently from the grave as a symbol of man's eternal quest for redemption and resurrection (a theme which is carried forth in the subtle Grail connotations conjured up by the Arthurian garb of the alien leader)? However, in the end, it is Wood's acerbic wit that propels this film to true greatness. Boldly rejecting the vision of his contemporaries (born of human vanity) that superior aliens would actually wish to conquer and possess our ridiculous little planet, Wood shows us that the only aliens that would waste their time on such an unpromising venture would have to be even more ridiculous. Hence he presents us with aliens who, having presumably bungled their way through eight previous plans for world conquest, have arrived at the ninth without even grasping the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Their supposedly superior technology is constantly malfunctioning, most of their pilots appear to be flying while intoxicated, and they actually have to tie strings to their flying saucers so they can find their way home again. (Sadly, many unperceptive critics have dismissed these brilliant satirical touches as mere shoddy special effects.) Little wonder, then, that the ninth plan fares no better than any of its predecessors. In a burst of flame, the aliens are gone, and it is just as if they had never been. One may well imagine that the fire that consumes their spacecraft travels all the way up the string to their home planet, and incinerates the whole dreary lot of them (thus effectively bringing to pass their own worst fear). The earth continues on its sad course, seemingly impervious to Criswell's final, angst-ridden plea for divine aid, and we are left with the distinct impression that (contrary to the mindless optimism of the fifties) all may not be well, after all.

With the possible exception of the current occupant of the White House, few things have provoked more sharply divided opinions than this movie. People either slobber over it or throw up on it. The first time I ever tried to watch it (on some cable network or other) I turned it off in the middle of the big scene where the female vampires attack, stoutly averring that there was no way to get drunk enough to watch the rest of it without slipping into a coma. Since then, I have come round to the opinion that this movie really does sort of grow on you. (Yes, I know, so do skin tags, warts and carbuncles.) That's why I'm actually giving it five out of ten stars. Yes, that's right, I said five out of ten. Consider:

1. Who would have believed that Universal's long-delayed sequel to "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" could have made the original film look like a polished work of art by comparison?

2. What other movie can you think of, in which the Frankenstein monster is actually the most sensitive, intelligent character?

3. Where else can you hear so many different people all trying to imitate Bela Lugosi, without any of them even coming close?

4. What other movie had its script written by 50 monkeys who were really trying to reproduce the complete text of Hamlet by accident?

5. Where else can you see a heroine get so relentlessly bashed, smashed and slammed around, walking away from all of it with no more ill effects than Wile E. Coyote, only to be killed in the end by a relatively minor collision with a CG werewolf? (Presumably all those massive internal injuries finally caught up with her.)

6. Well, most people don't like physics anyway, do they?

I could go on endlessly with such niggling observations, but the point is, let's give Stephen Sommers credit where credit is due. He had a much bigger budget than Ed Wood could have ever dreamt of, and yet he still managed to make an even more ridiculous movie than "Plan 9." You can't learn that in a physics class. Even more importantly, maybe someday there might be a next generation of MST3K. Can you imagine what a good time they could have with this one? In any case, it's definitely good for laughs, which is more than you can say for much of the crap that comes out of Hollywood nowadays.

I saw this little magnum opus for the first time very recently, on one of those dollar DVD's that seem to be everywhere nowadays, and was so moved by it that I cannot contain myself. For those who have never seen this mesmerizingly miserable Mexican import, and wish to view it without being prejudiced by anyone else's jaundiced commentary, there are undoubtedly substantial spoilers in what follows. So if you are one of those reckless individuals, stop reading at once and go and watch it for yourself. If you get drunk enough in advance, you might be fortunate enough to pass out before it's over.

Begin with the premise that a man may become a werewolf after being bitten by a yeti. No one in the film ventures an explanation as to how this sort of cross-species implantation could occur, and the rest of the movie is even more hopelessly nonsensical. But pour yourself another glass of wine (or whatever you're drinking), and let us proceed.

Paul Naschy (our werewolf) has the look of a man fighting a toothache, in a town where the only dentist has traded his supply of Novocaine for a case of cheap whiskey, and has been drunk ever since. (Ain't he the lucky one?) Naschy's facial expression never varies, whether in or out of makeup, and apparently no one gave him any coaching on how to act like a werewolf. Occasionally he tries to imitate the Lon Chaney Jr. crouch, but most of the time he simply strolls around in his black mafia shirt, like just another cool dude with a tad too much facial hair. To be fair, the makeup is actually better than the actor inside of it, but the continuity is infinitely worse. Naschy's werewolf is the only one I can think of that changes shirts twice in the middle of a prowl. He goes from black shirt to red shirt, then back to black, then back to red, then back to black, all in a single, frenzied night. Interestingly enough, he always does the Chaney crouch while wearing the red shirt, and the cool dude walk while wearing the black shirt. And it's only while he is wearing the red shirt that we see much of the fury alluded to in the title. Presumably there's something about that red shirt that just brings out the animal in him.

So anyway, after being bitten by the cross-pollinating yeti, the poor schmuck returns home from Tibet to learn that his wife has been sleeping with one of his students. The two illicit lovers try to murder him by adjusting the brakes on his car. He survives the wreck, and makes it home just in time for a full moon. Then, after chewing up his wife and her lover, he wanders off again, and somehow manages to get himself electrocuted. But is that enough? Can they let this tormented wretch rest in peace? Not a chance. He is resurrected by a supposed female scientist with a hardcore S/M fetish, otherwise known as "The Doctor" (and definitely not a new incarnation of Doctor Who). She digs him up and whisks him away to her kinky kastle, takes him down to the dungeon, chains him to the wall, and gives him a damn good flogging. Presumably such a string of indignities ought to be enough to put a little fury into any wolfman.

After his two-shirted rampage, our wolfman spends most of the rest of the film wandering around the castle, trying to find a way out. (And who can blame him?) In the course of his wanderings, he encounters a bewilderingly incoherent assortment of clichés, including a man dressed in medieval armor, a curiously inept Phantom of the Opera impersonator (supposedly The Doctor's father), and a hard-partying cadre of bondage slaves.

So what's it all about, one may reasonably ask? One gets the vague impression that it has something to do with mind control, and involves something The Doctor calls "chemotrodes." (Best guess. I really have no idea how it's spelled, if there even is such a thing.) Mercifully, the experiment ends in failure, and most importantly, it ends...before one has time to gnaw one's own leg off.

Of course, one doesn't really expect any sense from a film like this, but at least it ought to be good for laughs. This one isn't. Forget it, buddy. There is a creeping sort of anarchy about this film, from its patched-together, tequila-drenched ambiance to its atrocious cinematography and agonizing musical score, that defies even the most sozzled attempts to get any MST3K type laughs out of it. If it's not even good for that, what the hell is it good for? If Montezuma's revenge could have somehow been digitally remastered and put on a DVD, it would have looked exactly like this movie.

Up until now, I have never stumbled upon a dollar DVD that wasn't worth a dollar. I would have thought that anything would be worth one miserable dollar. The forty years of fiscal irresponsibility that began with Lyndon Johnson's final debasement of our currency has reduced the once-mighty dollar to subatomic dimensions; and at the rate the current administration continues to pile up debt, it will not be long before it will take Avogadro's number of the wretched things just to buy a handyman's special, dry-rotted, termite-infested two-bedroom firetrap in the middle of a malarial swamp. What could possibly be so worthless that it is not worth one stinking, lousy, butt-wiping dollar?

Well, this movie is it, folks. It is not worth a dollar. It is not worth a ten cent coupon for cottage cheese that blew out the window and landed on top of a manure pile. It is so bad that no combination of known adjectives could do justice to it. It is not even so bad that it is entertaining. It is just so bad that it is not worth a dollar.

Why do I feel this way? Well, here comes the big, bad spoiler: The ancient warriors are little more than translucent, badly composited wall decorations, and they make only the briefest cameo appearances. Aren't they the smart ones? The rest of the movie involves nothing more original than a series of pointless and poorly staged shootouts between an unlikeable and unconvincing bunch of good guys and a gang of bad guys whose leader (even by today's laissez-faire standards) ought to have his mouth washed out with Lysol and be sent to the penalty box for unnecessary profanity. But possibly he was only voicing his true feelings about this movie. If so, I can understand. Before I was even twenty minutes deep in this excrement, I wanted to shoot everyone involved, including the producers.

I would like to conclude with a protest against having to give one star to this abomination. It is not worth one star. It is not worth zero stars. It is not even worth one crummy dollar.

So much has already been written about this movie that it is improbable that I can say anything new about it. All the same, I am going to put in my two cents' worth.

I begin by imagining myself to be a visitor from a distant galaxy. I have arrived on this planet only recently, and am naturally appalled by the violence and stupidity of its inhabitants. Then, somehow, I get drawn into a crowd of people, and wind up in a large, darkened enclosure, stuffed into an uncomfortable seat, watching this barbaric spectacle. First I see a man camping out with some friends. Then, suddenly, for reasons that are never clearly explained, the man is taken away by other men, who proceed to brutalize him in every conceivable way, and finally put him to death. Each hideous detail of this process is lingered over to the point of near absurdity. In the meantime, aside from a couple of very brief flashbacks, I am told nothing of who this man was supposed to be. After what seems like an eternity, I watch him expire. And finally I see him magically arise and walk away from the whole experience without a mark on him. I, in turn, arise and walk away from the whole experience without a mark on me. I have no clue who this man was, what he lived for, why he died, or that what I have just witnessed is anything more significant than yet another expression of the blood lust that seems to pervade this entire planet.

So what is the point of this movie, then, aside from making Mel Gibson wealthier? To make believers feel guilty, and perhaps excite the morbid curiosity of others? Who was this man who was beaten to a bloody pulp and nailed to a cross? We are never really told. Of course, those of us who are not visitors from a distant galaxy are already supposed to know. But do we? Judging from the utterances of some so-called Christian leaders, and from films such as this, I am not so sure.

Somehow I managed to miss this turkey whenever it was originally released. I recently found it on one of those two-movies-for-a-buck DVD's they sell at the Dollar Tree, and am happy to report that it was worth every penny of the 50 cents it cost. I may even watch it again some time, if I can get drunk enough.

So what's a badly dubbed, Anglo-Saxon muscleman doing in thirteenth-century China, fighting the Mongols? Apparently he just wanders the globe, selflessly righting wrongs and fighting oppressors. Sort of an oily, loincloth messiah. And that, of course, is what makes these movies fun to watch. No matter how lousy the acting, no matter how ridiculous the dialogue, no matter how fragmented the continuity, no matter how asinine the plot, the bad guys always get killed in nasty ways, and the oppressed good guys liberated, by a hero who just walks off into the sunset at the end, demanding neither money, nor sex, nor even bus fare. Wouldn't that be nice?

Of course, Gordon Scott did do some nifty stunt work with the killer chariot, and he really made hash out of that stuffed tiger. And watch for a brief cameo appearance by a bug crawling across the camera lens during the big smackdown at the end. It is probably the most natural piece of acting in the whole movie.

It is difficult to see how any comments could possibly spoil a movie that already spoils itself with such surgical precision, but for what it's worth, be warned: part of the big surprise may be divulged in what follows.

Uh-oh. Look out. Here it comes.

Really. I warned you.

Last chance to turn back.

What's the big surprise? The whole creature thing is a charade to keep the inbred villagers from wandering out into the real world. It might have been more entertaining if the creatures had turned out to be real, and the village was a charade they cooked up to keep their children from wandering out of the forest.

More than one commentator has noted that this plodding, pompous piece of crap tells basically the same story you can find in a half hour episode of Twilight Zone. Strangely enough, the original "Teenage Cavemen" tells a very similar tale also. For that matter, the story of Adam and Eve is not entirely unrelated. The point being, this whole idea is as stale as the biscuits from King Tut's tomb. And presumably Mr. Shyamalan is not really such an arrogant fool that he doesn't realize it.

Every person who paid money to see this garbage should have his money refunded, and receive a personal apology from the producers.

Invariably this is the sort of thing that happens when somebody messes with the classics. Today's graphic artists may have better tools than Da Vinci, but they will never improve on the Mona Lisa. Likewise, the original Kong is as superior to this overlong, overstuffed offering as it was to the 70's remake.

The special effects are impressive in places, but many of them are more or less irrelevant to the story. Others are truly laughable. How claustrophobic can a dinosaur stampede become without one of the main characters getting stomped into oblivion? How could Kong have possibly carried on a fight with three T-rexes, all the while clutching a hundred pound girl in his hand, without squashing the girl into mush? How could anything as heavy as Kong go ice-skating in Central Park, at any temperature above zero, without falling through the ice? To make matters worse, some of the effects are patently inferior to the original. In one notable scene, a CG ship steams out of the harbor faster than any real ship could possibly travel. In another, Kong moves up the side of a building more like a fly on a wall than an ape. Moreover, the range of emotions of Peter Jackson's ape is no better than that of the 70's model. Most of the time he just looks angry, showing little of the genuine pathos that made the original so endearing. And why does Kong never bleed, no matter how chewed up or shot up he gets? The acting is tolerable (definitely not up to LOTR standards), but the characters sometimes behave in improbable ways. It is no more credible in 2005 than it was in the 70's, that a woman carried off by a giant ape would develop such an attachment to the creature that she would be willing to risk her life for him. Of the three versions, Faye Wray remains the only believable heroine. The only feeling she ever has for Kong is fear.

It is understandable that Peter Jackson might be somewhat at a loss for something to do after Lord of the Rings. What does one do after completing such a monumental epic? Of course, he could go back and do The Hobbit, and finish the Tolkien cycle. Judging from the results of his latest endeavor, that might be his best move.