11/11/11 (2011) – It’s actually a fairly competent paranoid Satanist thriller from The Asylum — at the very least, it’s better than the OTHER two Omen ripoffs I’ve seen from them. Doesn’t look impoverished, either. But pretty forgettable for all that. Which is why this description is so short.
Blind Fury (1989) – I really, really wanted to like this one. Rutger Hauer doing an American version of all those blind samurai movies? Sign me up! Unfortunately, the movie sometimes seems like it thinks it’s a comedy, when it mostly isn’t (and even those times when it thinks it is, it isn’t funny).
It’s also based on an unswallowable coincidence: Hauer tracks down and wanders into the home of his old Viet Nam buddy Terry O’Quinn twenty years after O’Quinn left him for dead in the explosion that took his eyesight, which JUST HAPPENS to be the same day that Vegas mob enforcers descend on his (well, his estranged wife’s) home to nab his wife and son as insurance that O’Quinn will keep making designer drugs. Boy, what are the odds, huh?
High point: Sho Kosugi (!) shows up in the last ten minutes as a specialty-hire assassin — and he’s got a haircut (!!).
Shockwave (aka A.I. Assault) (2006) – Atrocious acting, sub-budget SG, and a pathetic excuse for a plot. Not worth watching to the end… so why did I watch it to the end? Because the initial robot-chasing-humans scene passed Vasquez Rocks THREE TIMES! It was like watching a live-action Hanna-Barbera cartoon, and I couldn’t very well cut it off, could I?
Plus, check out these confined cameos (i.e., the actors who come in to shoot all of their scenes in one day): Michael Dorn! Bill Mumy! Alexandra Paul! Robert Picardo! George Takei! Tim Thomerson!
And to counter that, you have an “uncharted” and deserted Pacific island with clearly visible fenceposts, paved walking trails, and mown fields. Plus, nobody (certainly not the “crack” military team) knows how to handle a gun.
I seriously miss Tim Thomerson! It’s like suddenly, he (and Lance Henriksen, too) couldn’t buy parts or roles, ya know?
Henriksen still appears in a crapload of movies. Thomerson… I guess he was more of a “niche” taste.
What, you didn’t like the Trancers movies? Buddy, of all the people, I thought you would. Jack Deth, what a name. LOL. And Dollman? Dude!
Henriksen and I have a shared thing, (an incident, take your mind outta the gutter!) and I’ve really liked him for a long time.
I do see him around, but still, for a guy that’s been in nearly more big hit movies than even Michael Biehn (another wonderful actor that I don’t get to see enough!), it’s undortunate that we don’t get to see him more.
No, I loved the Trancers movies (or rather, I loved the first one, and loved Thomerson in the rest of them). But that’s been, like, forever ago. Just compare Henriksen’s IMDb list to Thomerson’s and you can see what I mean.
BTW, I recognized Michael Biehn in THE MANDOLORIAN (they run the credits at the end, so you can play along).