Almighty Thor (2011)

I wanted to begin this review by saying a few words about The Asylum, but those words escape me. If you're unaware, The Asylum is a small film studio in Hollywood that has not only brought us goofy monster movies with titles like Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, but has gained notoriety due to the sheer amount of "mockbusters" they've made over the years. Mockbusters — low-budget movies with titles and plots that copycat high-profile Hollywood productions, produced to siphon a little cash off the mainstream recognition of the big summer releases — make up the bulk of The Asylum's output, to the point that they've practically become the studio's calling card.

I'm having a hard time summing up just how I feel about The Asylum because I simply cannot believe that a company has managed to find even a tiny amount of success by doing nothing more than ripping off mainstream movies. The Asylum's reputation actually proceeded itself in my case, as the first thing I'd ever heard about them was that their mockbusters were all terrible. Dummy me just had to watch some of them, just to see if that was true. And guess what? The movies I've seen really sucked. I've reviewed their knockoffs of Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity in the past, both of which lived up to The Asylum's reputation and were indeed rather awful. But I just couldn't leave well enough alone and I sat down to watch a third one.

I don't shy away from acknowledging that I like superheroes, so I'll confess that I was drawn to The Asylum's knockoff of Thor. I enjoyed the mainstream movie, and the idea of The Asylum doing its own spin on the character (going as far as to actually use Thor, since Norse mythology is public domain) both intrigued me and worried me. I was intrigued because I wanted to see how they'd pull it off, and worried because I was convinced they'd screw the whole thing up somehow. And I figure if I was going to watch this movie, I might as well make the most of it and write about it here. Yeah, I sat through The Asylum's Almighty Thor and you poor saps are going to have to sit there and read all my gripes about it.

As the movie begins, the demon god Loki (Richard Grieco) leads an assault on Asgard in search of the Hammer of Invincibility. Before he can claim the Hammer, however, Loki is confronted by Odin (Kevin Nash) and his sons, Thor (Cody Deal) and Baldir (Jess Allen). Odin and Baldir are killed in the ensuing struggle, but not before Odin tossed the Hammer through a mystical portal leading to an unknown location within the land the Norse gods call "Midgard." With the warrior princess Járnsaxa (Patricia Velásquez) aiding him, Thor ventures into modern-day Los Angeles to retrieve the Hammer before Loki can acquire it and destroy the universe.

It's not often I say this about movies, but I actually kinda regret having watched Almighty Thor. The movie is that bad. You know the movie you're watching is bad when the only redeeming feature of the whole thing is the song that plays over the closing credits. I mean, I knew going in that the movie wouldn't turn out well, but holy crap. This is actually the worst of the three Asylum movies I've seen thus far, and that's saying a lot.

Sitting at the helm of this disaster is Christopher Ray, the son of prolific exploitation filmmaker Fred Olen Ray. And just like his father, Ray isn't a very good director. His work is just awful; the whole movie is just plain boring. Ray doesn't do a single thing to make it worth watching. The effects are ugly, the cinematography is lazy, and the fight scenes are about as unexciting as they could get. He couldn't even secure any decent locations to film at; Asgard looks more like some random California state park rather than a majestic fantasy land, while if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that Los Angeles was nothing but back alleys and warehouses.

And I have to talk about the special effects for a second. The Asylum couldn't possibly match the effects seen in the mainstream Thor, but it's almost amazing to see just how bad the mockbuster's effects are. For starter's Odin's castle likes like it was just added into each shot with Photoshop. There's also the butt-ugly dragon/dog things that Loki sets loose, but the most embarrassing of it all is the scene where Loki somehow sends Thor to Hell. It's painfully obvious that the actor is standing in front of a green screen while crew members shine red and yellow lights on him. Even that wouldn't be so bad if the CGI used to represent Hell didn't look painfully fake.

The movie also suffers from a crappy script penned by Erik Estenberg. He apparently doesn't care much about even the simple basics of Norse mythology, since it seems like the only things that even remotely come close to it are the names of the characters. He couldn't even be bothered to use the "Mjolnir" name for either of the hammers Thor wields during the movie. There's also the lousy dialogue and the feeling that some scenes end up repeating themselves.

And then there's how Estenberg writes Thor. The Thor seen here is an impetuous twit who constantly makes stupid choices and has to be bailed out by Jámsaxa (and she even kicks his ass once!). Estenberg even writes a scene where Thor opens fire with an Uzi during a fight with Loki. Yes, Thor brandishes a machine gun in this movie, and it isn't anywhere near as awesome as I wish it were.

I also didn't quite understand why Estenberg chose to have a last-minute scene where it appears that Thor and Jámsaxa were intended to be love interests. By the end of the movie they've supposedly fallen for one another, but outside of a few quick lines of dialogue near the end of the movie, you'd never know it. There's absolutely nothing that would build to it, and the actors have no chemistry together anyway. The whole thing feels like it got slapped on there after the fact in a poor attempt to add some pathos onto the climax.

Bringing up the rear is the cast, who are all pretty awful. Cody Deal stars in the title role, and plays Thor as an annoying, whiny brat. He's constantly bitching about something, and when you combine that with my earlier complaints, it makes Deal practically intolerable. In the supporting role of Jámsaxa, Patricia Velásquez is obviously trying to overcome the awful material. The sad part is that she's dull as dishwater and leaves no impression whatsoever.

This brings us to Richard Grieco, playing the villainous Loki. One would get the impression while watching the movie that he's realized his career has hit rock bottom, since he doesn't seem to give a damn about any of it. If he put forth any less effort, he'd just be standing there. It feels like he's just going through the motions, as if he's depressed that his career after leaving 21 Jump Street has gone so downhill that he's stuck doing crap like this.

As bad as Almighty Thor is, its ineptitude is only exacerbated by the fact that it's boring. I actually felt like stopping the movie halfway through so I could go take a nap or find some other constructive way to waste my time. It's such an awful movie that it makes me want to rethink my opinion of the mainstream Thor for having spawned it. After this, I want to avoid watching any more Asylum mockbusters for as long as I can. But knowing my luck, I'll probably end up watching one next week. And I'm sure it'll suck, too.

Final Rating: *

The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

One element of the Christmas season that I've always enjoyed is the glut of holiday specials that television studios crank out in that span between Thanksgiving and New Year's. A lot of these specials — the classic Rankin/Bass stuff and A Charlie Brown Christmas, for example — have achieved legendary status among Christmas lovers like me. But one special has gone beyond "legendary" and has become one of the most infamous television broadcasts of all time.

I'm speaking, of course, of the catastrophe known as The Star Wars Holiday Special.

If you haven't heard of it, then you've missed out on what many consider to be one of the biggest disasters in television history. Broadcast on CBS on November 17, 1978, just a year and a half after the hugely successful release of the original Star Wars movie, the special has done absolutely nothing but be a continuing embarrassment for everyone involved. The cast and crew either become angry or feign ignorance when asked about its existence. The story goes that even George Lucas himself once said that if he had the time and proper resources, he'd track down every bootleg copy he could and smash them with a hammer. But enough lollygagging; let's jump right into The Star Wars Holiday Special.

Keep in mind that this is a "holiday special," not a "Christmas special." That's important to know, because the holiday being celebrated in this glorious piece of trash is not Christmas, but "Life Day." And as the special begins, we're quickly dropped aboard the Millennium Falcon as Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) travel to the Wookie home planet of Kashyyyk to get Chewbacca home in time for his family's Life Day celebration. Their voyage is unfortunately impeded, however, when they discover that the Galactic Empire has initiated a security crackdown and their forces have established a blockade around the planet.

Down on Kashyyyk, Chewbacca's family prepares for his return. His wife Malla (Mickey Morton) struggles to prepare a big feast, while his son Lumpy (Patty Maloney) and father Itchy (Paul Gale) just try to stave off boredom through whatever entertainment they can find. But things get shaken up when their home is invaded by a squadron of Stormtroopers as the Imperial Army searches for members of the Rebel Alliance.

That's pretty much the entire plot. There's no way it could fill out an entire feature-length movie, so the special is pretty much presented in the form of a variety show. And as such, we're periodically presented with comedy sketches and musical numbers from such '70s pop culture luminaries as Jefferson Starship, Diahann Carroll, Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and Harvey Korman. And the whole thing is pretty much torture.

Of all the things to have had the Star Wars name slapped on it over the last thirty-four years, The Star Wars Holiday Special is perhaps the most bizarre. For starters, it's absolutely nothing like any of the six movies in the franchise. Sure, it's got some of the famous faces from the saga, but the production design and the overall tone and feel of the special come nowhere near matching the grand spectacle of the movies. And so awful was the reception to the special that it was broadcast only once, and has never seen any sort of official home video release. It exists today only in the form of bootlegs sold at fan conventions and digital copies uploaded to the Internet. If it hadn't been for that handful of people who owned VCRs in 1978 and had the forethought to press the "record" button, the special might have just vanished into obscurity forever. And that would have been a shame, because I'm sure Star Wars fans enjoy having something that makes those dreadful prequels look better by comparison.

This debacle was helmed by Steve Binder, whose entire directorial résumé consists of practically nothing but variety shows. I haven't seen anything else that Binder has worked on, since I'm not a fan of variety shows, but after seeing this piece of crap, I think I'll be staying far, far away from anything with his name on it. For starters, Binder must have had absolutely no budget at all to work with, because everything looks abysmally cheap. The sets and props look like they were slapped together with whatever they could find on the studio's backlots, and with the exception of Chewbacca, the Wookie costumes look like ten-dollar Halloween costumes. I know this was being made for TV in the '70s, but you'd think they could have given Binder and the crew more than 50 bucks and stock footage from Episode IV.

And then there are the different variety sequences, which range from not funny at all, to so saccharinely cute that they'll make you want to vomit, to just plain bizarre. The sequence where Harvey Korman appears in drag as a four-armed chef on a cooking show is so insanely manic that it'll probably have you screaming in hysterics at the screen. That's the tip of the iceberg, as it's definitely out-weirded by Diahann Carroll's segment. I honestly don't know where to begin describing this segment, but by God, I'm gonna try. The setup for the segment sees Itchy watching a performance by Carroll through a virtual reality helmet. The whole thing looks like it should be a bad LSD trip to begin with, but seeing Carroll in a hideous pink wig flirting with Itchy and making sexual innuendos while Itchy reacts like he's having the best sex of his life is all kinds of wrong. It's an incredibly creepy segment that goes on far past its welcome, and it's risqué enough that I'm surprised that they managed to get away with it in what I imagine was supposed to be a family show.

The only thing that comes close to rivaling the utter bizarreness of that segment is a portion near the beginning of the special where we see Malla, Lumpy, and Itchy going about their daily routine. What's so bad about that, you may ask? Malla, Lumpy, and Itchy are Wookies, and the Wookie language is basically roars and growls. It wouldn't be so bad if the segment was subtitled, but there's not a single intelligible word at all for nearly ten minutes. We have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and maybe it's me, but if the actors were trying to communicate through body language, they did a really piss-poor job of it.

And when upon reflection, the special doesn't really feel like it has anything to do with Star Wars. Yeah, all of the big-name characters from the first movie are there (albeit they're mostly relegated to cameos) and the name is there. But in no way does it match the same sense of adventure or excitement that the original trilogy has going for it. If this was my first exposure to the Star Wars universe, there's no way in hell I'd want to watch any of the movies. It's like the producers just created a sci-fi variety show and slapped the Star Wars name on it. The truth is I blame the whole "variety show" garbage for making things that way, because if it hadn't been for that, they could have focused on silly things like a plot or making the special fun to watch. But no, we couldn't have that, could we?

The only part of the whole special that stands out as a positive is the animated sequence, which is really only notable for marking the debut of Boba Fett. Animated by Canadian entertainment company Nelvana, the segment is the closest the entire special comes to matching the feel of the movies. The animation isn't perfect and the characters look more like they belong in the opening credits of Grease rather than a Star Wars special, but it's still a fun little segment and I wish the entire special had followed its lead.

I understand why The Star Wars Holiday Special is the cult phenomenon that it has become. But having sat through it, I'm kinda sad that it even exists at all. I've never been a big Star Wars fan, but no franchise deserves to have something as bad as this be a part of it. The special is so horribly flawed that I can't say I blame George Lucas for trying to wish it out of existence. But then again, Lucas had no problem attaching his name to Howard the Duck, creating Jar Jar Binks, or making unnecessary edits to the original Star Wars trilogy, so what do I know? In any event, The Star Wars Holiday Special is an absolutely horrible mess, a train wreck of epic proportions. And though I may enjoy collecting bad movies, I actually feel kinda guilty for having spent ten bucks on a bootleg DVD-R of this piece of crap. So you'd better believe I'm going to give this awful thing one star. But I'll still totally recommend it to all the diehard Star Wars fans out there that have yet to see it. If you think Greedo shooting first and Jar Jar Binks are the worst parts of Star Wars, you haven't seen anything.

Final Rating: *

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

When it was announced that Guy Ritchie would be crafting a cinematic reinvention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic literary detective Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role, it was approached by some with great trepidation. It may not have pleased the diehard Holmes purists, but the movie was a tremendously fun action/adventure movie that made a boatload of money at the box office. And yeah, I personally enjoyed a lot. Because of that, I was really looking forward to its sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. It unfortunately falls into the same trap as most sequels — it's simply not as good as its predecessor — but I still found it to be an entertaining flick despite its flaws.

The wedding of Dr. John Watson (Jude Law) and his beloved fiancée Mary (Kelly Reilly) is soon approaching, and Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is less than pleased. He tries to distract himself by burying himself in his latest investigation. At the center of this investigation is brilliant mathematician Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), whom Holmes has managed to connect to a series of seemingly unrelated murders and anarchistic bombings around the world.

Holmes discovers during his investigation that Moriarty has killed Holmes's romantic foil Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) and fully intends to do the same to Watson and his new bride should Holmes continue interfering with his grand scheme. A reluctant Watson is thus drawn away from his honeymoon into a new adventure with Holmes, an adventure that will see the duo try to thwart Moriarty from sparking World War I.

I said earlier that A Game of Shadows wasn't as good as the first movie. And I honestly think that's true. A Game of Shadows has a few flaws that I felt held it back from being the best movie it possibly could have been. That's not to say it's a bad movie, though. The movie is a fun ride from beginning to end, with plenty of exciting and entertaining moments that can definitely make the flaws forgivable.

Guy Ritchie returns to the director's chair for the sequel, and his efforts are absolutely fabulous. Ritchie's direction is actually one element that A Game of Shadows improved upon. And considering I loved Ritchie's work on the first movie, that's really saying something. He once again brings an edgy style and panache to the world of Sherlock Holmes, something that I thought was quite refreshing to see. I had no experience with Holmes prior to the first movie, and what little I knew about him put images in my mind of a stodgy, boring, Masterpiece Theatre type of thing. And that's not up my alley at all. But Ritchie made him cool, dangerous, fun.

Ritchie's depiction of Holmes is very stylish, thanks in part to the very slick camerawork courtesy of cinematographer Philippe Rousselot. That style adds a lot of flair to the movie, which makes some scenes a lot more awesome. Take, for example, the climactic fight between Holmes and Moriarty. Remember the fight scene in the first movie where Holmes uses his intellect to anticipate exactly what his opponent will do and ascertain an outcome before any punches are thrown? Ritchie reprises that here, only shaking it up a bit. Moriarty is capable of the same thing, and he and Holmes manage to have a full-blown fight with absolutely no physicality at all. It's a brilliant scene that actually goes a long way in showing that in the hands of Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, intelligence is as powerful a weapon as any gun.

Ritchie also puts slow-motion and "bullet time" effects to use on multiple occasions, almost to the point of excess. But he uses it creatively, letting it be to each scene's benefit. The chase scene through the snowy forest is particularly noteworthy for this, primarily for the intensity Ritchie approaches it with. The scene is unrelenting, and although it borders on running too long after a while, it's still a fantastic bit of filmmaking.

And just like in the first movie, Ritchie benefits from having a great cast of actors in front of the camera. Everyone in A Game of Shadows makes a fantastic contribution to the movie; there really isn't a bad performance in the whole thing. Robert Downey Jr. returns to play the titular detective and completely owns the role. His portrayal of Holmes as an almost manic insufferable genius is a hell of a lot of fun. Downey plays the part like he was born to do so, and A Game of Shadows is a better movie for having him in the cast.

But that's not to knock the other actors in the movie. Jude Law is engaging and likable as Dr. Watson, essentially playing the straight man to Downey. Stephen Fry is also a great source of amusement in his minor role as Holmes's brother, and despite her character being superfluous to the point of feeling completely unnecessary beyond two or three scenes, Noomi Repace puts forth a fine performance as a gypsy fortune teller who gives Holmes and Watson some vital clues.

Perhaps the best performance among the supporting cast, though, came from Jared Harris as the villainous Professor Moriarty. Harris is superb in the role, playing Moriarty as a charming and charismatic yet completely coldhearted snake. Moriarty is Holmes's equal yet opposite, mirroring his intelligence and cunning yet being completely bankrupt of conscience; Harris portrays this perfectly, playing a perfect foil to Downey's Holmes. It's a captivating performance, one befitting Holmes's archenemy.

The only problem I had with A Game of Shadows was the same I had with the first movie, that being the script. Credited to the husband/wife duo of Kieran and Michele Mulroney, the script feels way too light on plot for a movie of this length. The movie is two hours and ten minutes, and there's only maybe an hour and a half worth of actual story. This was probably due to the need to set up each action sequence, and to the writers' credit, it allows for a lot of fun moments with the characters.

As I said, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows isn't quite as good as the first movie. It's still a very entertaining movie that I most certainly enjoyed a lot. The action is fun, the acting is stellar, and the movie itself is impressively produced. It's already been announced that Sherlock Holmes 3 is in the works, and if A Game of Shadows is any indication, we could be in for a great ongoing franchise. There's a ton of movies out there for you to see this holiday season, but you wouldn't go wrong by seeing this one. It's well worth the time and money.

Final Rating: ***½

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

In my review of Parts: The Clonus Horror, I posited that more than a few people have wondered what it would be like to have a clone of themselves. But I wouldn't be surprised if a larger number of people had imagined what they'd do if they could turn invisible. While I doubt people having the ability to become invisible will happen in any of our lifetimes, it's definitely something that can send the imagination running wild.

Invisible people have been a part of pop culture for seemingly forever. But the concept was perhaps most famously depicted in the 1933 movie The Invisible Man, starring Claude Rains. Based on the H.G. Wells novella from 1897, The Invisible Man was another entry into the batch of classic horror movies starring what's since been labeled the "Universal Monsters." The movie would inspire countless imitators, one of which I remember really enjoying when I was a kid. The movie in question was John Carpenter's Memoirs of an Invisible Man, itself based on a novel written in 1987 by H.F. Saint. I liked the movie a lot in my adolescent years, so when I saw it on HBO recently, I figured I would check it out and see if I liked it as much as I did back then. So what say we dig in, huh?

Meet Nick Halloway (Chevy Chase), a stock analyst so disenfranchised with his life and his job that he spends every waking second trying to avoid his responsibilities. Stuck attending a boring shareholders' meeting with a nasty hangover, Nick sneaks out and tries to catch a nap in an empty room. But thanks to a freak accident in one of the building's laboratories, Nick is caught in the ensuing blast and is rendered completely invisible.

His presence is discovered by the technicians responding to the accident, and word of an invisible man catches the attention of shady CIA operative David Jenkins (Sam Neill). Jenkins sees the potential military applications of an invisible secret agent, but fearing the possibility of being a lab rat for the rest of his life, Nick flees. His only help is Alice Monroe (Daryl Hannah), a woman Nick recently met through a mutual friend and quickly fell for. But her assistance may not be enough, as Jenkins and his goons keep moving in closer and closer.

When my family first got HBO in the middle of the '90s, I remember discovering Memoirs of an Invisible Man and thinking that it wasn't that bad a movie. It wasn't great, but I thought it was an okay little flick. Revisiting it as an adult almost twenty years after its release, the movie's mediocrity is more readily apparent. To its credit, it's a watchable movie that does show a few flashes of potential greatness. But there are so many things that it just doesn't get right, and that really hinders the whole project.

Sitting in the director's chair is legendary horror/sci-fi filmmaker John Carpenter. I enjoy a lot of Carpenter's work, but Memoirs of an Invisible Man marks a shift in his career. He'd reached what was arguably the peak of his creativity during the '70s and '80s, but once the '80s transitioned into the '90s and Memoirs was made, it all started going downhill. Sure, he came close to regaining his previous glory with In the Mouth of Madness, his criminally underrated homage to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, but Carpenter's movies from the '90s on haven't really been all that great.

But we're here to talk about Memoirs of an Invisible Man, so let's stick with that. Though I rag on the movie, Carpenter's direction isn't that bad. His work is actually what makes the film watchable. Even when his movies aren't that good, there's no denying that Carpenter has boatloads of talent. And though Memoirs isn't among his best work, he's still obviously trying as best he can. Unfortunately, Carpenter seemingly can't keep the movie's tone consistent. The movie comes off like it's supposed to be a serious character study, but finds itself bouncing around with romantic and comedic scenes that muddles what I'm assuming was the movie's original identity. It feels like Carpenter was forced to deal with meddling studio executives who wanted a movie with a broader appeal.

I'll get more into that later, but I will say that for all of the movie's flaws, Carpenter at least tries to make things work. It helps that the invisibility effects are good. There are a few moments where they aren't 100% effective, but these instances are few and far between. The effects are really, really good, to the point that they're practically the star of the movie. Carpenter does cheat quite a bit by (more often than not) actually showing Chevy Chase and having everyone else on set pretending they can't see him, but I can forgive that. I imagine that it would be hard to form an emotional connection with a character if they're practically a disembodied voice.

But let's go back to that whole "executive meddling" discussion for a second, this time in regards to the script. Credited to Robert Collector, Dana Olsen, and William Goldman, the script seems like it could have made for one hell of a movie. I mean, I think the movie would have turned out for the better had things been done differently. Drop most of the comedy, rein in the romance, and make it simply a character study about a man who spent his whole life hiding from the world and has now been put in a situation where he desperately longs to be found. That would have been a great movie.

And in watching the movie that was eventually released, I can see that Collector, Olsen, and Goldman were trying to write the movie that I wanted to see. But the inconsistencies in its tone, the continued bouncing between drama to comedy to romance and back again, causes the movie to be unsure of its own identity. If the movie doesn't know what it wants to be, then the whole thing suffers.

It even causes the cast to suffer too. From everything I've read, the movie was intended to be a vanity project for Chevy Chase. The story I heard is that Chase had wanted to use it as a bridge into more serious acting jobs after spending his entire career working in comedy. And I'll confess that I did struggle to buy Chase in a serious role because of how long he's been a comedian. His performance here isn't perfect, but considering that this was his first real attempt at broadening his acting horizons, he's not bad either. In retrospect, I'm not sure if Chase was the right guy for the role, but I honestly can't say he was awful.

Daryl Hannah, on the other hand, didn't really do much to impress me. She seemed way too low-key for my tastes. And I can't say I thought she and Chase had a very believable romantic chemistry together, either. Their whole affair came off to me as being a bit tepid and dull. The way their story was written was lame enough to begin with, but Chase and Hannah simply didn't do anything to make me care.

And last but not least is Sam Neill, who I still enjoyed despite having the feeling that he was playing just another paint-by-numbers sleazeball government agent. It's a character that's been done a million times in a million movies, but Neill does just enough to make it work. 

Memoirs of an Invisible Man is a movie that could have been awesome. It could have been one of the best sci-fi flicks of the '90s. But with less-than-impressive performances and a general inability to decide just what the hell it wants to do with itself, it ends up being disappointing and sadly rather forgettable. I wanted to like the movie, but it was too hard for me to overcome the huge mountain of mediocrity that it builds up. I don't normally call for movies to remade, but I'd actually be okay if somebody wanted to do a remake of this particular little trainwreck. Maybe then Memoirs of an Invisible Man could be awesome.

Final Rating: **

DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)

Although it was not the first fighting game, Capcom's Street Fighter II revolutionized and redefined the entire genre when it arrived in arcades in 1991. Fighting games were big business for game developers in the years that followed, with imitators and wannabes all gunning for a share of the pie. While the most famous of these is the Mortal Kombat franchise, other games made name for themselves as well. Virtua Fighter and Tekken gained prominence through their then-groundbreaking use of 3D polygonal graphics, while the Dead or Alive franchise gained fans for... well, other reasons.

Since the franchise's debut in 1996, Tecmo's Dead or Alive games have become notable primarily for its extensive use of what's been dubbed "jiggle physics." That is, how much the bosoms of the female characters bounce during gameplay. Yeah. The jiggle physics became so prevalent that Tecmo even created a series of spinoffs titled Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball. This focus on sex appeal would even transition into the eventual live-action film adaptation of the franchise. Yeah, you may not know it if you're an American, but they actually made a Dead or Alive movie. It was only released to 505 theaters here, a full year after it was released in the rest of the world. It had pretty much no promotion, and it didn't even make back half of its budget. And yeah, it totally sucks. It really, really, really sucks.

A group of top fighters from around the world have been assembled at a private island for the prestigious "Dead or Alive" tournament. Among these fighters are skilled assassin and thief Christie Allen (Holly Valance), pro wrestler Tina Armstrong (Jamie Pressly), and ninja princess Kasumi (Devon Aoki). Overseen by the tournament's unscrupulous organizer, Victor Donovan (Eric Roberts), the three women start clawing their way up the tournament's rankings to accomplish their own personal goals. But it soon comes to light that Donovan has concocted a plan to harness the fighting prowess of each contestant for his own nefarious purposes. The fighters will have to unite and stop Donovan from fully orchestrating his evil scheme.

This is the part where I have to confess that I've never once played any of the Dead or Alive video games. I barely even knew they existed; I'd only vaguely heard of the Xtreme Beach Volleyball spinoffs prior to seeing the movie and doing my research for this review. So I can't judge how close the movie sticks to the game. But what I can tell you is that the Dead or Alive movie is one gigantic steaming turd. It's the kind of video game movie that's so bad that I could have sworn Uwe Boll had something to do with it. (So you can imagine my shock when not once did I see his name listed in the credits.) I just... wow.

DOA was directed by acclaimed fight choreographer Corey Yuen. Although he's directed tons of movies over the last three decades, the way he directs DOA makes it look like he was fresh out of film school. Yuen's direction is uninspiring, sub-generic, and just plain boring. There's a lot of stuff going on at all times, but none of it feels like it matters. It fails to capture one's attention to the point that I just couldn't be bothered to care. The fight scenes aren't all that exciting either; they're nothing that hasn't been seen in a hundred other karate movies. The CGI is ugly and unconvincing too, to the point that it looks like the effects had absolutely no budget at all.

However, I should give Yuen credit for trying to keep the movie close to its gaming rules. Disembodied voices boldly announce when knockouts occur, and surveillance footage of the fights feature life bars at the top of the screen. It's silly, goofy, and undeniably corny, but it's still a funny little element that does liven up the movie a little bit. But it still cannot save Yuen's work from being less than adequate.

And then there's the terrible script, credited to J.F. Lawton, Adam Gross, and Seth Gross. Seriously, this screenplay is really, really bad. I'm aware that most '90s fighting games had practically no plot at all beyond "pick a character and kick some ass," but the DOA movie's plot is friggin' preposterous. "The tournament being a cover for a mad scientist who wants to harvest fighting styles in order to create technology that would make its user the greatest fighter alive" is a phrase I never thought I'd ever have to write, ever. And I never would have, had it not been for this movie.

The real problem with the script, though, is that I just plain didn't give a crap about a single one of the characters. They're written so blandly, so one-dimensionally that I can't begin to even pretend I'm interested in anything they do. Maybe one could argue that Lawton and the Grosses were staying close to the source material, since in addition to not much plot, '90s fighting games had characters whose whole character could be summed up in one sentence (if that). It allowed the games to focus on what brought people to the party, specifically the fighting. I've seen and enjoyed some movies that were nothing but action set pieces, but the DOA movie simply doesn't pull it off.

Last but probably least is the cast, who simply aren't all that great. Jamie Pressly is okay and amusing in spots but still kinda bland, while I thought Devon Aoki's acting was a lot better in Sin City. And considering all that was required of her in Sin City was to stand around and look cute, that's saying something. Holly Valance's performance is stiff, while I didn't think Eric Roberts was even bothering to try. I'm convinced that Roberts just took the job because he needed a quick paycheck, but I can't prove that. The only performance in the entire movie that I liked at all was Kevin Nash, who has a small part as Jamie Pressly's character's father. His part isn't much, but he's funny, entertaining, and enjoyable. I wish I could say that about the rest of the cast, but everyone else is just kinda lame.

Upon reflection, I don't think the creative forces behind DOA: Dead or Alive were striving to make a good movie. I think they just wanted to make a movie that would appeal to 13-year-old boys. All there is to the whole thing is scantily-clad women and fight scenes. And there's even a scene where, while one of the male characters fights off a group of mooks, the female characters drop everything to play a round of beach volleyball. It's not only a cute little shoutout to the Xtreme Beach Volleyball games, but it pretty much sums up the entire movie: people fighting, babes in little clothing, and not much else. And really, the movie might have at least been entertaining had it not been so unbearably boring. But for all the fight scenes and for all the pretty ladies in bikinis, I could barely make it through. Thanks for helping propagate the stereotype that video game movies suck, DOA! That was mighty nice of you!

Final Rating: *½