Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D (2011)

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Being someone who hasn’t played video games regularly since the heyday of the Atari 2600, I have zero to little knowledge of the Tekken franchise. That statement still holds true after taking in the animated feature it has spurred, Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D. I’m guessing the word “Tekken” must mean “boredom” in at least one of the Asian languages, because that’s the best description for this sorry excuse for entertainment.

I saw neither blood nor vengeance. I did see some leather-clad babe on a motorcycle trading sore words with another improbably proportioned woman in a near-kimono. There was also a schoolgirl who rode a panda to class, only to find herself competing with a fellow co-ed — the one garishly dressed in shades of purple, up to the added colors in her albino-white hair — for the affections of a guy who has an ongoing hobby of diving off rooftops in a bid for suicide.

In other words, TBV3D — as its fan base would call it, if the film were good enough to merit one — is less a futuristic fighting action piece and more just a piece. Of poop, that is. I suppose that’s okay if you’re expecting a giggly rom-com set in the halls of a learning institution. But then it should be titled Tekken: Giggle School 3D, no?

Tekken-ites seated around me in the theater sure enjoyed it, laughing at every gag, but those came across as in-jokes to this newbie viewer, because the movie expends no effort to set up any of the characters and their relationships to one another. Just what the hell was going on in this movie? My precious time being wasted, that’s what. —Rod Lott

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Action

Poseidon (2006)

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I’m not sure why audiences and critics were so harsh toward Poseidon, Wolfgang Petersen’s remake of the inexplicably Oscar-winning 1972 disaster flick The Poseidon Adventure, as it’s a perfectly acceptable, escapist summer movie: A boat flips, people die. What more do you want?

Poseidon wastes precious little time getting the giant wave to tip that cruise ship upside down. I think it’s chapter 5 on your DVD player, and Petersen (director of the equally water-logged The Perfect Storm and Das Boot) milks the spectacle for all it’s worth. True, that causes the film to suffer in character development, giving us extremely simplified personalities that pretty much begin and end with the stars’ images; for example, Kurt Russell is basically playing Kurt Russell, with Josh Lucas doing Josh Lucas. And the rest of the cast includes Hot Daughter, Single Mom, Token Kid, Expendable Minority and Fussy Richard Dreyfuss, who, because he wears an earring, doubles as The Gay Guy.

Ultimately, as an effects-heavy action-adventure, that doesn’t matter. That Russell still harbors nice-guy charisma and Emmy Rossum sports wet cleavage through the whole thing helps even more. It even has bite, with one person in particular meeting a gruesome death worthy of a slasher flick. Like Paul Gallico’s original novel, Peterson’s film could be accused of a little racism, if subconscious, doing away with almost all the Latinos and blacks in one fell swoop. Just seeing Andre Braugher in the role of the ship’s captain is an automatic death knell.

The film gives water a sense of real menace. Claustrophobia is very real, and Poseidon takes advantage of that. So for a disposable thriller with good special effects, Snake Plissken and a little Fergie ass-shaking, Poseidon will do you right for a night’s rental. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Swimfan (2002)

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Had star Erika Christensen actually gone all the way and bared her considerable assets, Swimfan might have something to recommend. (Am I being too vague here? Apologies. I totally mean her very large boobs.) Instead, it’s a laughable, teenage take on Fatal Attraction. Its dumb title is hardly the worst thing about it.

Bring It On’s Jesse Bradford stars as Ben, a high school stud with a swimming scholarship practically sticking out the side of his Speedo and a girlfriend in the other (Roswell beanpole Shiri Appleby). One day a new girl named Madison Bell (ol’ chipmunk-cheeked Christensen) comes to school, asks him to help with her locker, fucks him in the pool to say “thanks” and then won’t leave him alone, despite Ben’s increasing protests.

Wait, so what’s the problem here? I’m thinking back to when I was in high school. And if someone as cute and curvy as Christensen wanted to have sex with me and it meant she would show up at my house to look at old pictures with my mom or instant-message me while I was doing homework, so be it. ’Tis a very small price to pay for hot, chlorinated sex.

As Madison’s behavior grows more psychotic, Ben starts to fear for his life. Yeah, and? I’m supposed to root for this jock asshole? He takes advantage of an impressionable young girl and then throws her away because he’d rather stick it to a rail-thin waitress with raccoon eyes? Sorry, folks, but I just can’t sympathize. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Rock ’n’ Roll Nightmare (1987)

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The Sixth Sense can toss my hairy, brown-eyed salad. The Usual Suspects can drown itself in a jail cell toilet bowl. Planet of the Apes can’t dodge the hurled heaps of fresh monkey poop it deserves fast enough. Strong words? Probably, since I absolutely love all three of those films, but there’s no denying that none comes close to matching the late-’80s Canadian cult metal “horror” classic, Rock ’n’ Roll Nightmare, for the title of Greatest Movie Twist Ending of All Time.

Other assholes might spoil it for you, but I shall not. Instead, I will attempt to describe the epic lameness you must suffer through to reach the final nirvana of fucked-up awesomeness. Made for $90,000 Nightmare is a loopy vanity project starring screenwriter Jon Mikl Thor, a blond bodybuilder/heavy metal singer whose ambitions always seemed to dwarf his budgets and talents.

Thor (who memorably played the zombie in the MST3K-spoofed Zombie Nightmare) plays John Triton, lead singer of a metal band that has descended upon an abandoned Ontario farmhouse to practice before recording a new album and going on tour. It’s a long trip, and we get to see most of it, thanks to the nearly eight-minute driving sequence director John Fasano (Black Roses) had to insert for the film to reach feature-length.

With the band comes the groupies, girlfriends and requisite sleazy manager, all of whom are eventually killed by the hilariously tacky-looking puppet demons who call the farmhouse home. Soon (but not quite soon enough), only John is left, and the significance of his last name is revealed. I shan’t say more.

This ranks right up there with Manos: The Hands of Fate, Troll 2, The Room and Plan 9 from Outer Space as one of the most deliriously fantastic “bad” films of all time. As slow and poorly made as it is, it has a mesmerizing quality that allows you to happily travel along with it, all the way to the absurdly awesome end. —Allan Mott

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Comedy

Soul Plane (2004)

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So I just saw Soul Plane, aka Let’s See How Far We Can Set the Civil Rights Movement Back and Throw Tom Arnold in There as Well: Da Movie!

In a premise that makes the Wayans brothers’ White Chicks look like Roots, a lovable loser (Kevin Hart) whose dog is sucked in to the propeller while he gets diarrhea on an airplane, sues and is awarded $500 kajillion. Therefore, along with his cousin, Method Man, he opens the first black-themed airline.

It kind of sounds like Airplane!, and I feel like it earnestly tries to be, but it’s so bogged down in its own ineptitude that it just becomes an exercise in pure tedium. Not even John Witherspoon (the dad from Friday) could get a laugh out of me. The jokes are all pretty much unfunny shit-and-ass gags and the aforementioned Arnold is a guy named Mr. Hunkee (pronounced “honky”). That’s about as clever as it gets, folks.

Snoop Dogg takes over the Peter Graves role, but we get no classic lines like “Do you like movies about gladiators, Billy?” Instead, Snoop smokes some weed. Surprise! There was some actual potential in this idea, but as my date said, it seemed more like a “made-for-UPN movie.” And I’m surprised it weren’t. —Louis Fowler

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