Dead or alive, Hollywood is set to make a new entry in the cybernetically stifling RoboCop franchise in the next year or so; thankfully it won’t be a sequel to the lamentable 2014 remake, but instead a direct sequel to the 1987 original. So … yay?

With the mainframe of direct hope that this could be the sequel that we’ve all hoped for — even though RoboCop 2 really isn’t all that bad — I plugged in and had a bowl of high-protein mush as I watched, for the first time in nearly 20 years, RoboCop, directed by the masturbatory filmmaker of Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven.

Sometime in the near future, the city of Detroit is a rabid hellhole of violence and oppression; the only difference between then and now is that the guns can blow entire limbs off in one shot. To help control the unrest on the streets, megacorp Omni Consumer Products takes the body of blown away (and blown apart!) cop Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) and turns him into the law enforcement of the then-future, RoboCop.

Aided by his spunky partner (Nancy Allen), this metal-plated pig takes to cleaning up Old Detroit, including the violent criminals who murdered him, led by total dirtbag Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith); he’s a classic ’80s villain who uses the phrase “Bitches leave!” to clear out a room of high-haired hotties about to have a threesome with corporate scum Miguel Ferrer.

Viewed with a far more socially bitter set of eyes than when I was an idealistic youth, RoboCop is one brilliantly hilarious film, riding the thin line between sharp satire and flat-out comedy. Inspired by the British comic-book lawman Judge Dredd, the American RoboCop is definitely given a comedic Reagan-era spin, a fascistic fantasy that fuels a supremely macho parody — one of the reasons why it still feels mostly undated.

But is it a cohesive mélange of conservative criticism that can work in the stranger-than-fiction 2020s? Probably not, but I’ll buy it for a dollar to watch anyway —Louis Fowler

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The year is 2019. America is under the rule of a tyrannical despot that will, without mercy, capture and kill those who don’t meet his idea of genetic perfection simply to attain his primarily dark goals of world domination. No, it’s not the long-awaited Donald Trump biopic — give it a few years, though — instead, it’s the Martin Dolman Sergio Martino flick 2019: After the Fall of New York.

In a now-alternate timeline devised by the unusually prescient Martino (Hands of Steel), the world is currently a radiated cesspool that is under the dubbed thumbs of the megalomaniacal Eurax conglomerate, a united league of unspecified evil that rounds up the deformed humanity that roams the wastelands to do far-fetched cybernetic experiments on them. At least I think so.

Meanwhile, in the vastness of the desert that now resides outside of New York City — I’m thinking New Jersey — a Snake Plissken-type that goes by the name of Parsifal (Michael Sopkiw, Blastfighter) rules most of the primitive sporting events of the time — including the demolition derby, unsurprisingly — winning dirty coins and dirtier women; he’s very much a serviceable anti-hero with a five-o’clock shadow, a kicky headband and one questionable quip after another.

Hearing of his somewhat heroic deeds in the field, a rival confederacy called the Federation tells him that not only is the only fertile woman in the world hidden somewhere in the Big Apple, but that he needs to rescue her before a (completely obvious model of a) rocketship shoots the few chosen survivors into space in order to, I’m guessing, restart the human race on the moon.

Once in New York, however, there’s no time for sightseeing, as a rather pathetic group of dwarf-killing mutants who rope and wrangle rats for various barbecued meals are looking for an unnecessary fight; it’s here where Parsifal meets his smudgy ladylove, Giara (Valentine Monnier, Devil Fish), as well as the wily little person Shorty (Louis Ecclesia) and a monstrous big person named, suitably enough, Big Ape (George Eastman, Warriors of the Wasteland).

It’s Big Ape, by the way, who, when they find the working womb sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber, proceeds to have unconscious sex with her, spreading his diseased genes even further and hopefully into space; it’s a bit of sexual assault that Parsifal makes a cool aside about as his armored station wagon makes it past some of the worst traps that the obviously dense Eurax army has to offer.

Widely regarded to be one of the best spaghetti rip-offs of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York — and it is — 2019: After the Fall of New York is actually far more entertaining than its original source material, from the lonely jazzman who blows a golden trumpet among the ruins to the Eurax leader who has his eyes ripped out and cybernetic ally re-implanted. By the time the open ending came around, I was kind of wishing that 2020: After the Fall of L.A. were a real thing. —Louis Fowler

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In 2072, the TV networks’ biggest shows are reality competitions like Killbike and The Danger Game, both as nihilistic as they sound. (Isn’t that crazy? I don’t mean those shows, but the idea that TV networks will exist in 2072. Oh, that Lucio Fulci — such a kidder!) The webs’ ante gets upped when the floating station WBS makes plans for The Battle of the Damned!

To be played in Rome’s Colosseum, where the bread-and-circus gladiators once sparred, this surefire ratings grabber forces death-row inmates to participate in games of mortal combat that update Ben-Hur-style chariot races with motorcycles. Among the first round of The New Gladiators (to borrow the film’s title) are Drake (Jared Martin, Fulci’s Aenigma), in the clink for killing the three guys who killed his wife, and Abdul (Italian post-apocalyptic flick staple Fred Williamson, Warriors of the Wasteland), who practices kung fu under disorienting strobe lights.

It’s a terrific idea, not fully realized until the release of the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle The Running Man three years later. The New Gladiators gets too caught up in prepping for the games, as Drake and friends — including Doctor Butcher M.D. himself, Donald O’Brien, as a severely burned ol’ pal with fiber-optic eyes — plot to destroy the show and WBS from within.

Known alternately as Warriors of the Year 2072, the movie certainly bears appeal, yet has more ambition than director and co-writer Fulci (The New York Ripper) has means. This is evident from frame one, when a pan across the cityscape at night aims to evoke the “wow” factor of Blade Runner — unachievable when said cityscape clearly is a model in miniature, akin to a backdrop from your cousin’s Lionel tabletop train set. Fulci gets in one good effect, when a woman’s face melts like a candle. —Rod Lott

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The intergalactic pirate Divatox — whose name kinda sounds like a feminine hygiene product of some sort — is chasing a little person dressed in an ill-fitting troll costume through the woods on a swirling green planet; back here on Earth, however, a young kid named Justin is feeling a little blue because his mom is dead. It doesn’t help when a random Power Ranger, right in the middle of a training sesh, spin-kicks himself right out of the ring and into a broken back. Ouch!

Meanwhile, the typical mutants-on-ice monsters are cutting off their hands and such as the caustically attractive Divatox explains the film’s main plot points for those who walked in too late to catch the opening Star Wars-esque crawl as Lerigot, the mini-wizard who reminds me of Gwildor from Masters of the Universe, sadly, shoots himself to Earth and lands in a wildlife preserve in, presumably, Africa; he immediately meets a lion and shoots pleasant-enough fireballs from his hand. Also, monkeys throw feces at him, which I can fully understand.

As area losers Skull and Bulk are kidnapped by Divatox’s fish-shaped pirate ship, Power Rangers leader Tommy wrestles somewhat convincingly with a rubber anaconda in the jungle. Once they find Lerigot and take him back to PR HQ, that spazzy robot Alpha gives the Rangers new powers which, if you can believe it, turns out to be some new cars … turbo cars, but still.

Now, it’s up to the Power Rangers to not only stop Divatox before she marries an incarnation of Satan, but also rescue retired Rangers Kimberly and Jason before they are sacrificed to said demonic being. Mind you, this is just the first 30 minutes of the movie; sure, it sounds like a lot going on, but keep in mind that the next hour is just wholly repetitive fight scenes, with the mostly basic cars offering very little turbo-charged power for these anonymous Rangers.

While the budget has definitely been given quite a bit of high-octane Nos, this new cadre of superheroes is, sorry to say, an unlikable crew that might have worked well on the small screen, but in a movie theater, lacked the personality that made the original team so much fun. But, then again, I am a 40-year-old man that just watched Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, so what the hell do I know? —Louis Fowler

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While I have never been a fan of the Power Rangers — I was in high school during its original release and knew better — I went to a screening of the gritty remake a year or so ago, mostly disappointed and dismayed how they got rid of everything that made the original even remotely watchable: the bright colors, the cheap monsters and the generally jovial atmosphere.

As a matter of fact, when the Black Ranger shoved his sword into Rita Repulsa’s chest and said, “Eat Zord, space bitch!” I walked out of the theater in disgust.

But, settling in to watch the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, I was taken back to a time where I sat in the living room, agitated, trying to coerce my brother through bribes and threats into changing the channel to What’s Happening!! Youth truly is wasted on the young, isn’t it?

As the 1995 film starts, immediately we’re introduced to the fun teenage heroes — all in their signature Power Ranger colors, natch — about to skydive as a part of the Angel Grove Jump-a-Thon to benefit the observatory, which will probably come in to play later, right? (Oddly enough, the gang is jumping with the two local bullies, Skull and Bulk, who they’re always hanging out with, for some reason.) As the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ version of “Higher Ground” blasts on the soundtrack, rest assured we’re not in Fox Kids territory anymore, thank Zordon.

After landing at the drop point, they all immediately go rollerblading through a dangerous construction site, when, as they pass by, the hardhats find a mysterious sewer cover with a lion’s head on it; you know it’s something important because the operatic chorus unleashes an important swell in Latin. Instead of calling the experts at the local college to help them figure out what it is, the workers get a crane and open it themselves, unleashing a glowing purple egg.

A couple of the film’s monsters break the egg and unleash a 6,000-year-old demon named Ivan Ooze, who both resembles and acts like a tween-friendly version of notorious child murderer Freddy Krueger, right up to saying “Welcome … to my nightmare!” during a fight scene. Ready for war against the Power Rangers, Ooze launches an all-out early CGI-filled assault.

After a punch-up in a parking garage with the Ecto-Monsters (or whatever they’re called), the Power Rangers lose their super-ninja powers and, when their father figure Zordon lay dying, they decide to go to a distant planet that looks like the California desert to get said powers back. On that planet, a half-naked warrior woman named Dulcea shows up to help and gives its intended audience their first real erections.

The special effects are state-of-the-art (mostly terrible) computer graphics — Ivan Ooze and his liquidic sequences are ghastly even for a kids’ movie — but the Power Rangers themselves, here not replaced by their Japanese Super Sentai variations, remarkably, pull off some impressive fight moves that the children of the ’90s really didn’t deserve and probably didn’t know what to do with in the elementary school playground.

Regardless, it’s still far more watchable than the aforementioned reboot, Saban’s Power Rangers, but probably not as good as the official sequel, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, I’m guessing. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.