In the de-evolution of humanity, Evel Knievel resides somewhere between P.T. Barnum and the dudes of Jackass. One of the more singular phenoms of 1970s pop-culture ephemera, Knievel carved out his own showbiz niche via death-defying motorcycle jumps over everything from the Caesars Palace fountains to the Snake River Canyon. He was equal parts professional wrestler, Vegas-era Elvis and Captain America all wrapped up in the fractured frame of a Montana-born huckster – the allure of which, such as it was, is nicely encapsulated in 1977’s Viva Knievel!, in which Evel plays a fictionalized version of himself.

It marks a somewhat sad swan song for Gordon Douglas, a better-than-average B-movie director best remembered for two other films with titles ending in exclamation points: the giant ant sci-fi Them! and They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!, the ill-begotten sequel to the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night. Douglas knows how to move a camera, so Viva Knievel! is imbued with a surprising level of competence, at least in terms of choreographing action.

The script, however, is a different story. It is replete with dialogue and situations as nuanced as an anvil dropped on one’s head, which might just be how screenwriters Antonio Santean and Norman Katkov prepped to get inside the mind of one Robert Craig Knievel. In terms of plot, suspense and characterization, it all plays out a little like a live-action version of a Scooby-Doo cartoon.

For his part, Evel is mostly convincing as himself, whom the movie depicts as a big-hearted lug with sideburns to match. What does it say when a guy who thought he could jump the Grand Canyon (a boast he thankfully never attempted) turns in a better performance than the ostensible actors? Lauren Hutton is especially ill-served as Evel’s love interest (!), while the rest of the cast – including Red Buttons, Leslie Nielsen, Frank Gifford and Marjoe Gortner – reads like a roster of Love Boat special guests,

Viva Knievel’s biggest head-scratcher is Gene Kelly as Evel’s aging mentor now fallen on hard times. Did Kelly have gambling debts during the ’70s? It is hard to understand why the then-65-year-old dance legend would subject himself to this humiliation but, then again, the guy did do Xanadu.

Yeah, I’m thinking gambling debts. —Phil Bacharach

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A Filipino version of the Cannonball Run, the Manila 1000 is a three-day, off-road race involving everything from jeeps and dune buggies to stock cars and stocky Joe Don Baker (The Living Daylights) as driver Walkaway Madden. It also features motorcycles — or “motor-sickles,” if you wish to pronounce it as does race promoter Bo Cochran, played by Larry Hagman (TV’s Dallas) in a hat pilfered from Carmen Sandiego’s entry hall.

Before the start, in a setup soon to be swiped by Safari 3000, a plucky journalist from Stratus magazine (Susan Sarandon, the same year she did The Great Smokey Roadblock) pokes her nose around for a story, so Cochran forces Madden to let her ride shotgun. Dressed in a lumpy-butt jumpsuit that’s less Evel Knievel and more Elvis ’77, Madden is furious, like, “A yucky woman? Phooey!” so you just know they’ll bicker and bitch until they fall into something approximating love or lust. Worry not — we’re spared the sight of a Sarandon/Baker sammie.

Storywise, Checkered Flag or Crash actively works against itself, as if settling to let Harlan Sanders’ boot-scootin’ theme song do all the plotting: “Checkered flag or crash / Goin’ for the heavy green, gonna beat ’em / Checkered flag or crash / There ain’t no in between / So do me right, you damn machine.”

The slight variation from that outline arrives with news of an upcoming stretch of the route suddenly becoming impassable … so Cochran doubles the prize money. This should clear the way for director Alan Gibson (The Satanic Rites of Dracula) to turn in a film that feels faster and more dangerous, yet over and over again, he demonstrates how ill-suited he is for the job.

From Macon County Line’s Alan Vint to Playboy centerfold Daina House as a masked rider, Gibson has all the ingredients within reach to make a rip-roarin’, race-brained hicksploitation pic. Instead, he botches the recipe with confusing staging and editorial choices that are particularly flabbergasting for this subgenre — for instance, slowing down and removing frames from some of the more extreme-speed stunts, which is a technique one level above a photo flipbook.

Plus, with pacing akin to the driving skills of my late, not-so-great stepgrandmother — lay on the accelerator, let up, lay on the accelerator, let up, ad infinitum — you’re better off watching an autocentric film that wastes more gas than it wastes your time. —Rod Lott

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It’s all in the family for Zindy the Swamp Boy, a kiddie matinee like no other. That’s because el familia en cuestion is Mexploitation royalty, with René Cardona Jr. writing and producing, and René Cardona III starring. Then around 9 or 10, RC3 plays the title role of the orphaned kid who lives in a jungle shack with his flute and his fugitive grandfather, played by his actual one, René Cardona Sr., who also directs!

Given the trio’s collective filmographies of inappropriate inanities, can you tell which of the 10 scenes below actually happen in Zindy the Swamp Boy? Select all that apply.

1. Zindy shares a bed with his chimpanzee companion, Toribio, who can row a canoe.

2. Zindy rubs Toribio’s head and says, “You know what I’m saying: You’re all mine. All mine.”

3. Zindy asks Grandpa what’s wrong with sleeping naked.

4. Zindy keeps a pet tarantula named Cooka and a pet snake named Rufina.

5. Zindy and Toribio collaborate to trap a turkey in a rudimentary cage.

6. Grandpa drowns in quicksand, but has the temerity to leave his hat floating behind.

7. Finding an unconscious girl in the jungle, Zindy exclaims, “A woman!” before ordering Toribio to help drag her body back to the shack.

8. Back at the shack, Zindy orders Toribio to undress the girl as he retrieves Grandpa’s scalpel: “We’ll have to open her belly.”

9. Put out by his shack guest’s request for sugar in her coffee, Zindy wrestles and stabs a crocodile to death.

10. Zindy is killed by a puma.

Answer key: If you left any of the above unchecked — even just one — you are a failure. —Rod Lott

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When Arnold Schwarzenegger symbolically passed the action-hero torch to Dwayne (née “The Rock”) Johnson in 2003’s The Rundown, the big-budget Skyscraper is the type of high-concept behemoth I would have expected right out of the gate. It’s a Die Hard imitator, after all.

Having lost a leg in a domestic-disturbance call, Johnson’s Will Sawyer has traded the FBI for the calmer occupation of safety and security assessor. His latest assignment is consulting on The Pearl, a 3,000-feet, 225-story tower — or in one side character’s lingo, “a $65 billion chimney” — in Hong Kong. On the day of his big PowerPoint presentation, a terrorist group sets fire to the middle of it, endangering the lives of the only family who lives there: Will’s, naturally, in the form of a wife (Scream queen Neve Campbell) and two kids who get way too excited about panda hats.

Complicating his goal of saving his loved ones? The terrorists frame Will for the blaze and pursue him to get hold of a MacGuffin-serving tablet. No matter the number of reasons, you won’t care.

The undemanding premise has been sickened into soullessness by writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber, reteaming with Johnson after the not-terrible Central Intelligence. This should be an easy lay-up for his superstar, but an absence of humor diminishes the man’s considerable charm. Worse, the action scenes ring strictly remedial — well-shot without being choreographed to engage.

In all, Skyscraper is not Johnson’s Die Hard. But it is his A Good Day to Die Hard, which I wish upon no one. —Rod Lott

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The first two Maniac Cop flicks, while not great cinema, are pretty fun movies to waste the afternoon with. But Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence? Yeesh!

Mere hours after Matt Cordell, the undead maniac cop in question, is laid to rest, he’s resurrected by a voodoo priest for reasons never fully explained. Now Cordell skulks around corners and other badly lit areas for much of the film.

That leaves us with Robert Davi, back as Detective McKinney, throwing around terrible one-liners and even worse come-ons, mostly to an anonymous doctor treating his cop friend — and maniac cop paramour — who was recently shot by, of all people, Jackie Earle Haley and his pharmacist girlfriend.

Before you can scream “What the hell is going on here!” at your television set, somehow Davi and the doctor end up on city streets with Cordell driving a flaming machine of vehicular death. The film’s main selling point, while at first is pretty cool, wears out its welcome out after a repetitive few minutes as the running time is stretched as far as it can possibly go.

Over the course of my life, I had many chances to watch this Cop entry and never did, as something always seemed “off” about it. Apparently, I was right: The rights were bought up by the absolutely terrible Joel Soisson, with a threadbare plot by Larry Cohen — written while he was driving! — and not directed by William Lustig, who walked off after a day of shooting. It’s now credited to Alan Smithee.

In the end, the only people looking like they’re having any fun are Davi and the Maniac Cop, Robert Z’Dar. If I needed something positive to say, good for them. I hope those paychecks were all right, even though I doubt it. —Louis Fowler

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