Not an obscure vehicle for the early African-American superhero of DC Comics, Black Lightning is an obscure movie about a vehicle — a super-powered car, and we would expect nothing less from producer Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian director of Wanted.

In Moscow, a poor, Peter Parker-esque student named Dima (Grigoriy Dobrygin) wishes he had the dough to snag some hot wheels so he could snag the hot girl (Ekaterina Vilkova) away from the rich classmate who downs Mentos like meth. The bad news is that the car his family gifts him for his birthday is a real clunker. The good news is that, thanks to crystals found in a soil sample from the moon or something (it doesn’t really matter), the car can fly.

It’s only during his job delivering flowers that Dima discovers this, when it suddenly goes all Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on him in order to avoid a collision. Soon, he learns how to operate it properly and becomes a crime fighter, using his rocket-boosted wheels to save a child from an apartment fire, thwart a purse thief and, hopefully, keep the greedy Kuptsov (Viktor Verzhbitskiy, Night Watch) from destroying the city with his diamond mining. We know Dima means business, because he dons a hoodie.

The more you defy gravity, the less impressive it becomes, which is to say that Black Lightning, like much of Bekmambetov’s filmography, doesn’t know when to quit. Initially, the film is a fun and spirited action-fantasy that can be enjoyed by young and old. By the time Chernaya Molniya (its Russkie title) passes the halfway point, the story has all but given up trying to keep from being overwhelmed by the effects — a valiant, but futile try.

Still, the ride is worth taking once. —Rod Lott

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After made-for-TV movie of ’74 starring Cathy Lee Crosby went straight to Nowheresville, Hollywood tried to adapt DC Comics’ Wonder Woman for the tube again, this time with Lynda Carter, thus the odd title of The New Original Wonder Woman. That’s a lot of adjectives; they forgot “bosomy.”

Set in World War II, this telefilm has stupid military stud Maj. Steve Trevor (a vacuous Lyle Waggoner, Surf II) on a one-man mission (yeah, right) to shoot down a Nazi plane headed for American skies. Following an aerial battle with the German aircraft, in which the stock footage turns to black-and-white several times and doesn’t seem to care, the two opposing pilots must abandon their planes and parachute to safety. Steve is shot twice by the Nazi, who gets his comeuppance by landing in the jaws of shark stock footage.

Unconscious and adrift on the uncharted Paradise Island, Steve is rescued by two of its all-female inhabitants, including Princess Diana (Carter, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw). Although they’ve never seen a male, the ladies appear to spend an hour on their hair and makeup each morning anyway, and run around in flimsy nighties.

Diana wishes to escort Steve back to D.C., under the protests of her queen mother (Cloris Leachman, Young Frankenstein) and her minions (one of whom is Grease‘s Fannie Flagg, lending a whole new theory as to why there are no men on the isle). Demonstrating incredible athletic prowess, however, Diana eventually wins the honor of flying the war hero back to his country via her invisible jet.

The United States goes ga-ga for this honey in the skimpy costume, and a talent agent (Red Buttons, The Poseidon Adventure) taps her to do a stage show wherein she deflects bullets using her bracelets. Since Steve is still holed up in the hospital, she agrees. And after that, she saves the world from the threat of Hitler. The end.

Wonder Woman is played as incredible camp, but apparently no one told Carter, and that’s for the better. Just when you thought the telefilm would collapse under its own weight of has-been stars, Henry Gibson and Stella Stevens show up, too.

Perhaps the best thing about it is its opening credits sequence, rendered via Pop Art animation, backed by that atrocious quasi-rock theme song (“In your satin tights / Fighting for your rights”). Do lasso this one into your viewing schedule soon. —Rod Lott

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In the space of three films, Luc Besson proved himself a talented director of immensely entertaining genre films. La Femme Nikita is an action classic; Léon: The Professional is pure awesome; and The Fifth Element is gorgeous, magnificently goofy sci-fi.

So when did he become cinema’s equivalent to James Patterson?

That’s not exactly fair; Besson’s works are usually brainless, but watchable, while Patterson’s books (his and those he “shares” with other authors) are nigh unreadable. But Besson has taken a page from Patterson and more or less retired from directing and taken up producing scripts (usually his) that are slapdash at best, relying almost solely on a director’s prowess and the charm of the actors (see: Lockout, Taken, The Transporter, District B13, etc.).

Another is Colombiana, a spiritual sequel to Léon, following a young girl’s rise from innocent to trained assassin as she methodically hunts down her parents’ killers. But where Léon benefitted from Jean Reno’s and Natalie Portman’s charismatic performances and Besson’s verve behind the camera, Colombiana gives us Zoë Saldana (2010’s Star Trek reboot) and director Oliver Megaton (Transporter 3), a man with a Transformer name and an inability to keep the camera still.

In the best action films, we see the stunt. District B13 is entirely stupid, yet nonetheless one of the genre’s best of late, its director understanding that his parkour-trained actors are best served simply by pointing the camera on them and letting them do their thing (see also [seriously, see it]: Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemption). Megaton also puts parkour into some chase scenes, but keeps cutting to different angles, so that we never actually get a sense of the physicality. Hell, you edit me like that, I look like an Olympic gymnast (if you knew me, you’d know why this is absurd).

It all boils down to gunplay and explosions, keeping the viewer’s eye distracted and a few great character actors employed. You could do worse, but you can do way better.

A note on Saldana: We need more female action heroes, and she seems an actual talent, selling the emotional scenes far better than the script deserves. But for the love of all that’s holy, someone get her a protein bar. Can we please stop putting firearms in the hands of people who weigh less than the guns they carry? It’s distracting and physically ridiculous (see also: Angelina Jolie). —Corey Redekop

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Essentially War Games made for the cost of a No. 10 combo meal at Taco Bell, the jaw-droppingly dated (even for its time) Terminal Entry centers on a group of computer geeks who sit around playing simulation games all day long. Their latest obsession is one called — ready for this? — Terminal Entry, in which they maneuver terrorists to plunder and kill.

Unbeknownst to them, the damn thing’s not a game at all! They’ve hacked into a military computer and are ordering real-life terrorists to make real-life attacks and real-life kills, the crazy kids! The situation grows even crazier when the high schoolers order an attack on themselves. Only then are our boys tipped off that they’re playing for keeps.

Do our socially challenged teens — among them, Heathers‘ Patrick Labyorteaux and Rob Stone, the eldest son from ’80s TV sitcom Mr. Belvedere — have what it takes to fend off a highly trained and highly armed unit of bad guys? Well, when one of the boys puts a tie around his head Rambo-style, I guess the answer’s a resounding “Yes!”

Truth be told, there is no reason to watch this film past the initial eight minutes, during which 1984 Playboy Playmate of the Year Barbara Edwards (Hard Ticket to Hawaii) steps out of the shower. Ever. So. Slowly. —Rod Lott

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Didn’t see 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra? No big whoop, because only two members of the titular elite military team return for the sequel, Retaliation, and one of them is a mute whose face you never see, while the other dies in the first act. In fact, only three Joes in that initial attack remain standing: Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson, Fast Five), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Paliciki, Red Dawn) and Flint (D.J. Cotrona, Venom).

The clean slate allows for an early franchise reboot, of which incoming director Jon M. Chu does not take full advantage. With Rise, Stephen Sommers didn’t leave the bar set all that high, but Chu fails to clear it nonetheless. Perhaps its lack of song-and-dance sequences proved too intimidating for the Step Up sequelizer, but so much of Retaliation feels like a retread — and worse, its back half bears the sunny-late-afternoon look of a direct-to-video sequel.

The Joes plot their revenge on archenemy Cobra, that über-evil organization which now has control over the White House, thanks to a POTUS double. In a nice nod to his Man with the Iron Fists passion project, The RZA plays a blind martial-arts master who imparts equal dollops of wisdom and training to the secondary ninja characters; meanwhile, the Joes enlist the aid of the original G.I. Joe, aka Joe, now retired. He’s played by Bruce Willis, who scowls through his extended cameo in such a way that he looks bothered to have come in on a Saturday. Joe’s house is an ode to the Second Amendment, with guns and other weaponry stashed behind cabinets, within hidey holes and in a safe whose code, naturally, is “1776.”

Too bad this second-parter isn’t as revolutionary. Chu stages one bang-up set piece, in which Snake Eyes (Ray Park, The Phantom Menace’s Darth Maul) engages in a swordfight against a squad of fellow ninjas … while leaping from cliffside to cliffside. The rest of the action is strictly at a superficial, shit-blows-up level: passively entertaining as it unloads, forgotten soon thereafter. —Rod Lott

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