No one makes low-budget genre fare better than producer Roger Corman. Be it sea creatures in rubber suits or slimy alien rapist worms, Corman can (and usually does) deliver the goods. But what happens when he tries to, you know, get serious? What happens when he tries to make an “issue” movie? If Fire on the Amazon is any indication, I’d love to see his version of An Inconvenient Truth.

Yep, Fire on the Amazon is a movie about the devastation of the rainforests and one man’s fight to stop it. Of course, when that man happens to be the ridiculously coiffed Craig Sheffer, looking like he came straight from a grunge-era Playgirl photo shoot, the results will be nothing more than ineffectually comedic. He’s a nosy “photojournalist,” but I’d like to see his press credentials and, no, your blog doesn’t count, Craig.

If following this clown around Bolivia weren’t enough — and believe me, it is — Amazon also happens to be one of the earliest films to star Sandra Bullock, and, true to Corman form, she has a sex scene. While this may be a cream-dream come true for her fans, director Luis Llosa brings the same clinically erotic eye to lovemaking that he did with Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone and a bathroom floor in The Specialist. (I’m actually worried that Llosa has never been with a woman. We should all pitch in and get him a hooker!)

Does the rainforest get saved? No, of course not. But Bullock does get many long-winded speeches about displaced native peoples that actually made me almost want to do something. Almost. So I guess it was successful in that respect. —Louis Fowler

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Oh, man, where to begin? Martin and Michael McNamara are twins and founders of the real-life Twin Dragons Kung Fu Club. Despite looking like a godforsaken mix of Yanni, Chuck Norris, Robert Reed, Kenny Loggins, Geraldo Rivera and that guy who played Matt Houston, they decided they needed to be in the movies. But because there’s no market for goofy-looking Canadian boneheads who do karate, they had to make their own. One of them is Twin Dragon Encounter — a too-close Encounter of the unkind.

The brothers basically play themselves (which makes me feel sorry for anyone who has to live and/or interact with them) and they’re quite full of themselves, as an opening credit crawl informs us that they are “the country’s most renowned martial artists,” yet every Canadian I’ve asked has never heard of them. Cue the pure-‘80s hair-rock theme song (“Fight for Your Right to Fight,” by one Billy Butt) and montage of shirtless men exercising and hitting each other playfully like kittens.

After this brutal, near-endless workout, the brothers pack their identical vans to go “on holiday” with their nondescript rail-thin girlfriends, whom they delight in kicking around and putting down at every opportunity. Following several insufferable driving sequences, they finally arrive at “Twin Island,” the boys’ own slice o’ paradise on the lake. At the dock, however, they’re immediately menaced by a gang of “weekend warriors,” whom they take down in a ridiculous slow-motion fight.

These bad guys — led by a cigar-chomping near-albino with huge facial pores and a Mohawk — vow revenge and spend the weekend plotting to harass the McNamaras, who are too busy sawing and chopping firewood in the middle of summer and ignoring their beards to notice. But when the bad guys bust in their cabin and take the girls, the twins plot revenge. One has to question their motives, as when they enter their dishelveled cabin, the first thing they say is a panicked “Our poster’s gone!” Girls schmirls!

These McNamara boys fail cinematically, so I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to watch anything they produce. —Rod Lott

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How did that metal-masked Frankenstein become Frankenstein? Where’d he get that modified Ford Mustang? How did the high-octane event even start? Did they find Joan Allen through LinkedIn or something? Odds are, you weren’t even asking such things at the end of 2008’s Death Race remake, but Death Race 2 arrives to answer them anyway. Despite the numeral, it’s a prequel. It’s also near its equal.

On the aptly named Terminal Island reside hardened felons in a near-future prison run not by the state, but a corporation. Yeah, yeah, same as before, but this movie isn’t just the same ol’ thing. Before the prison’s sultry PR queen (Lauren Cohan of TV’s Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries) invents the Death Race, she garners huge TV ratings by having the prisoners engage in bare-knuckle, life-or-death, gladiatorial-style games, in which pathway access to lethal weapons is triggered by ground sensors.

She proposes “a race: wicked, epic,” which begets the Death Race we all know and love. One of its instant superstars is Terminal Island’s newest residents, Carl Lucas (Luke Goss of Hellboy II), thanks to an ill-fated bank robbery-cum-cop murder spree. Other participants include Danny Trejo (Machete), Robin Shou (Mortal Kombat) and a hillbilly (mountain rape).

If you weren’t told this was a direct-to-DVD effort, you wouldn’t know it. Taking the reins from Paul W.S. Anderson (who contributed the story), director Roel Reiné (The Lost Tribe) keeps the proceedings consistent in look, tone and feel — i.e. big, dumb and wonderfully violent — and the film ends precisely where Anderson’s began. Goss is more Desmond Harrington than Jason Statham, but he’s a good anchor for the flick, even if he keeps his pants on while humping his driving partner (Tanit Phoenix, Lost Boys: The Thirst). If you liked the first one, schedule some room for some more vroom-vroom. —Rod Lott

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Mark Dacascos’ performance in Crying Freeman isn’t all that solid, but this is still a great movie, the first from his Brotherhood of the Wolf director, Christophe Gans.

In it, Dacascos plays the titular Freeman, a potter-turned-assassin who guiltily sheds tears for the deaths of those he is ordered to execute. In the beginning, a beautiful artist (Julie Condra) observes one of his hits in San Francisco; the laws of his Sons of Dragons organization require all eyewitnesses be killed, too, but for some reason, he spares her life.

Even though he can’t bring himself to kill her, others are willing to take his place, so Freeman must protect her as he falls in love with her. He also wants out of his organization, so he has to use all his super-killer moves to off his former comrades in Japan and the Interpol agent who tails him there (Kiss of the Dragon’s Tcheky Karyo).

Based on a manga of which I have no knowledge, Crying Freeman is lensed in a highly stylized, hyper-real manner, with lots of slow-motion shots and kinetic violence. It’s a bit slow in spots, but Gans has such a knack for visuals, few frames aren’t worth gawking at. Despite Dacascos’ presence, there aren’t much martial arts, but a lot of shootin’ and swordplay. And Rae Dawn Chong. —Rod Lott

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Disney had two high-profile, big-budget underperformers in the summer of 2010: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Alfred Molina has supporting roles in both, making me think he and Disney have hatched some sort of punch-card deal. In Prince, he’s the swarthy sheik who serves as comic relief, with lines like “Did you know ostriches have suicidal tendencies?” and “Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?”

The latter could be asked of the movie, which, like producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, tells very little story for a long feature. Based on a series of video games, Prince stars oft-shirtless and miscast Jake Gyllenhaal as Dastan, the titular royal himbo framed for the death of his father, the king — by poisoned robe, no less!

Dastan flees with Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) across the desert and encounter ostrich races, deadly snakes and guys with gloves that shoot spikes. He is quite the ace at hopping rooftops, performing rope tricks, and smiling and grunting. Whenever he effs up, he unleashes some magic sand in his magic dagger which reverses time for several seconds, resulting in a cool effect whose cost could keep Third World countries flush in white rice for years.

Between noisy action scenes of mild interest, boredom reigns and traipses a kajillion-dollar path of predictability. Likely under threat of death and/or contractual obligation, director Mike Newell utilizes Bruckheimer’s trademark golden hue, which always bugs me since I first saw it on Saturday-morning cereal ads. Those didn’t have Arterton, however, but even her stunning beauty isn’t worth weathering the sandstorm. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.