Alien Lockdown (2004)

Tagline:

It's time to prey.

Movie Review:

First of all, you may have noticed I have dropped the "Back of DVD" part of the review. Unless it's funny for some reason, from now on I won't be putting it on my reviews; they tend to give too much of the plot away I find. I'd prefer to do that in my review if it's going to be done at all.

Alien Lockdown is a Nu Image production that was made for the Sci-Fi channel and stars John Savage (Soldier's Revenge) as a mad doctor, James Marshall as his wacky computer geek assistant and Michelle Goh (Out for a Kill with Steven Seagal) as the rough and ready Ripley.. I mean Talon.. who is doing "one last job" for the black ops army before retirement.

The movie starts with a history lesson; in 10,000 BC a meteor crashed to earth. Inside it was a chest that contained a green emerald thing. Apparently the power it yields can control armies, you know the story. The chest is rediscovered in an archaeological dig (think Stargate). Flash forward to the present and the Doctor is in his lab with a bunch of other scientists doing a demonstration of his new creation - an alien hybrid of all the most powerful animals on the planet, a genesis courtesy of the emerald and the decoding of its contained information by James Marshall's character. It has shell like skin that breaks scalpels on contact so you know it's tough. Assured by the good Doctor that it is pacified while in the lab (for some reason), of course the bloody thing gets loose and kills everyone, except the Doctor and James Marshall.

That's when Michelle Goh as Rip-.. Talon is brought in with a team of army guys to do a "clean up" of the lab. That means blow it up and kill everyone. This is when it really becomes obvious that the producers wanted a half Predator movie and half Aliens movie. We get the scene in the helicopter where we meet all the tough army guys and Michelle Goh, like Schwarzenegger in that scene, just sits back and watches, not getting in on the hilarity and bonding. Once they land it switches into Aliens mode - lot's of stealthy walking around dark corridors with machine guns, lot's of military commands ("Flank left", "Cover the rear", "Watch those corners" - well some of those I may have taken straight from Aliens but you know what I'm talking about). They even have bleeping tracking monitors to locate the creature.

The movie proceeds exactly how a low budget reinterpretation of two famous movies squished together would. The black ops team bust in, find the Doctor and his geeky assistant, and keep getting attacked by the creature on the loose, losing team members one by one until only Michelle Goh remains. Oh come on I'm not giving anything away here; as soon as I said "Aliens" you all thought "Only Ripley lived through that, with one other guy and a robot".. well there is no robot here but Goh does make it to the end with one other guy, and the Doctor is nuts and obsessed with the creature the same way the android from the first Alien is ("I admire it's purity.") The horror element is fairly mild as this was made for TV, but there are a few close ups of bloodied bodies and and the creature chewing on human remains.

Goh's character is done pretty well actually. Tough and emotionless from the outset, it's hinted at early on that she has feelings for one of the soldiers. He of course bites it and after his "leave me here" scene, she has a bit of a teary and explains to the one other survivor re: the other guy why this was her last job and why she is expendable. It's actually tactfully done and not cringeworthy like most emotional scenes in movies like this. Everyone else does a good job with their roles though there is nothing really to write home about, though John Savage's mad scientist is pretty effective, especially when he has a violent rant about how awesome it is that we are all going to die. Goh get's the best throw-away line, paraphrased from Predator: "If it can be penetrated, it can be killed." Oo-er.

The alien itself actually looks pretty good. Thankfully they went down the 'man in a suit' route like the aforementioned movies and not some CG abomination. The face is ripped off from the Predator and has the same mandibles but the skin and back and the way it moves are very Alien. Honestly it looks pretty good, though I'm sure the darkness helps masks any flaws. Later in the movie when the baby ones turn up they are done with average CG and look about as realistic as the swarms of scarab beetles in the Mummy movie (the awful one with Brendan Frasier). The CG helicopter at the beginning and end is a bit of a let down as well. The sound stage is pretty good too with lot's of realistic gun-firing, metal on metal sounds and the creature's roars.

I made it all the way through this, only checking the time to go once and an hour had passed at that point so that's pretty good. Surprisingly, if you are in the mood for something entirely derivative, Alien Lockdown comes recommended. Damn it, someone is cooking a steak outside my window and now I want one. That's nothing to do with this movie, I'm just on a roll here.

The Video:

Unfortunately the Australian release DVD was trimmed from 1.78:1 to 1.33:1 and the 5.1 DD soundtrack muxed down to a stereo. Disappointing but the overall presentation is still pretty good. The single-layer disc does mean the bit-rate is a bit low which is evident in the early Iraq scenes and some of the dark scenes in the complex. Overall though not bad and the soundtrack is quite punchy. Runtime 88 minutes.

I'm feeling lazy today and happen to have a download of the widescreen DVD as well as my own DVD so I used that for the screenshots. I'm pretty sure that's the edition you get in the US actually so is more representative for buyers anyway.

Sourced From:

A video store fire-sale for about a dollar.

Trailer:

More Screens:

Double Feature: Strike Commando I & II (1987/1988)

Movie Review:

It's a crying shame that most of Bruno Mattei's movies are not easily obtainable on DVD. Hell of the Living Dead would have to be the easiest to locate, and Rats: Night of Terror isn't hard to find either. Even Cruel Jaws got an Italian DVD release. I really don't understand however why his best (and by that I definitely mean most entertaining, not most accomplished) movies - Robowar, Born to Fight, Shocking Dark and the two Strike Commando films featured here - are not available on anything except hard to find VHS tapes.

That being said, the first Strike Commando VHS can be picked up on Amazon for a few dollars, but what I have here are the two Japanese tapes. I've recently started collecting these (Phantom Soldiers was the first) and they do tend to go for a bit of coin on eBay, but hey.. you have to collect something, right? Right? Right.

Strike Commando

"When I used to steal watermelon down in Alabama I only had to climb fences, not cut them."

Reb Brown as Sgt. Michael Ransom and his team of strike commandos are sent in to blow a munitions depot in Vietnam, their Major and Colonel waiting on the outskirts with a plunger to blow the planted demolitions. Reb Brown takes point, sneaks in and stealthily knives guards and fires crossbows while planting the explosives. With still a minute on the clock, Reb is noticed by one of the guards who fires at him and alerts the other guards. All hell breaks loose and the Colonel not waiting for the timer to run out, and not listening to the Major, orders the depot destroyed. The whole thing explodes and the commandos, except for Reb Brown, all perish. The Colonel mutters something about "The mission above all else."

Then next thing Reb Brown knows is waking up to the face of a ghostly figure in a wooden hut; he screams, falls out the side and hangs on a rope by his feet. It turns out he's been captured by a local Vietnamese tribe who a hiding from the Viet-cong who instead of killing him chant "A-merry-can! A-merry-can!" over and over. Their leader, a Frenchman named Le Due, begs for his help to lead the tribe to safety and he agrees. On the way they trip over a radio and a very pissed off Reb calls home, out for the Colonel's blood. The Major tells the Colonel that Reb is the best and he should watch out.

"The rest of strike commando demands vengeance! They all demand justice!"

The Major is sent in a chopper to retrieve Reb though of course it's not made easy for either of them with all the vietcong around. There's plenty of jungle warfare scenes, vietcong soldiers in pointy hats firing automatic weapons wildly at Reb and missing, grenades blowing up small sea craft etc. Out of nowhere a huge Russian goliath, Jakoda, strangles Le Due to death then he kicks a cobra (yes, really). Reb pulls a Russian badge torn from Jakoda's shirt out of Le Due's dead hands and pockets it. Eventually Reb makes a run for the chopper through rice patties being shelled with mortars, and gets picked up by the chopper.

It all ramps up a notch when after debriefing, Reb returns to get photographic evidence of the Russian influence in the area. Reb finds all the vietnamese tribe dead except for the child who in his dying throes tells Reb that the huge Russian goliath Jokda killed them all and asks about Disneyland. Reb loses his shit and M16's the huts to pieces. That's called 'showing emotion', but all it does is get Reb captured by Jakoda (who calls him an "Americanski" to prove he's Russian) then tortures him. Of course he eventually escapes his captors and decimates everything in his path.

"Disneyland! Popcorn and ice cream grow on trees! Anything you want can be granted to you by the genie in the lamp!"

This movie is hilarious and a real good time. That's why I decided to bold so many of the best lines, and believe me there are plenty more I'm leaving you to find for yourself. Some lines are obvious terrible attempts at humour and others, like Reb's sweet conversation with the Vietnamese child, are so cringeworthy you can't not laugh at them. The body count is also vast, almost up there with Phantom Soldiers, and there are plenty of exploding huts to look out for. Reb is great in his usual way but just not quite as awesome as he is in Predator-ripoff Robowar. He does play a pretty great Rambo-ripoff though.

"Amerrrriicannnskiiiiii!!!!!"

Strike Commando is a great 85 minute action-filled ride that gets better with each viewing. Yes, it's tragically bad, but that's what we're here for. Perfect for a loud, beer fuelled evening with mates. Hell it even has a cock fight, and by that I do mean chickens. Also, best going-apeshit ending to a film, ever. See this movie.

(Here's a great Reb Brown motage video!)

Strike Commando 2

"I've come to kill you."

Sgt. Michael Ransom is back, this time portrayed by Brent Huff (Born to Fight, Cop Game, Armed Response... some real pearler 80's trash and an actor I really need to get more DVDs of) who plays it less far less straight than Reb Brown did. Ransom wakes in his bed after a flashback-to-war nightmare played in slow motion to one of his ex-army buddies telling him his old commanding officer, Major Vic Jenkins (played by veteran actor Richard Harris), is being held captive by the CIA and to go talk to a guy called Peter Rogue to get information. So Ransom goes and beats the crap out of Rogue until he tells him where Jenkins is being held then sets out to rescue him. Upon arriving Ransom quickly learns that the obviously free Major Jenkins isn't being held captive but is hiding out for a secret operation. Seconds later a helicopter flies by, yells to Ransom that he isn't the one they are after and after a few scuffles on the ground with some Filipino's and a KGB guy in a white suit, take Jenkins hostage - for real this time.

A ransom video is sent, with Jenkins detailing the terrorist's demands for ten million dollars worth of diamonds to be dropped at a certain place. Ransom pissed off about the demand for, uh, ransom, volunteers to go and rescue his old Major from the KGB though it doesn't go easy for him. With the ransom diamonds on his possession, his own boat crew try to mug him, but they are easily dispatched with in Rambo-style ways.

"I've never been sure if women are courageous because they are stupid, or stupid because they are courageous."

Now is when it gets funny. Ransom arrives at a bar that is the same damn bar from Raiders of the Lost Ark, complete with similar female bar-owner playing drinking games with the local clients for cash. Her name is... Rosanna Boom. Baha! That's as good as Homer Simpsons' pseudonym Max Power. Anyway, she's a sassy woman just like Marion Ravenwood and gives Ransom shit, but before they can get into too much of a love/hate relationship, some evil music plays and the KGB guy in a white suit - flagged by ninjas of course - enters the bar, introduces himself as Kramet and demands the diamonds. Ransom hands them over but the Kramet is infuriated to discover they are fakes and crushes them in his KGB hands, then unleashes the ninjas in a hilarious display of backflips and "Hai! Hai! Hwah! HI-YAH!" During the fight a ninja is set alight and Rosanna Boom reveals that she is storing boxes of dynamite in the bar for some reason. The whole place explodes and everyone flees to the forest.

Whereas Strike Commando was a war action movie, Strike Commando 2 is definitely an action adventure. It's clear Mattei was trying to combine Indiana Jones with Rambo and the result I think is brilliant (for a B-movie of course). Mattei has managed to get some of the most memorable scenes and characters from Raiders of the Lost Ark and merge them with Rambo III and even a few lines from Predator for good measure and a torture scene from Lethal Weapon 2! It's definitely a more coherent movie than the first and feels like much more effort went in to making a better picture, but the rip-off lines are just shameless. "There's something in the trees", "Turn around".. all the Predator favourites are here.

"I have a shocking surprise for you."

Ransom and Boom (what a name for a partnership!) agree to work together to find the guy holding Jenkins ransom, Huan To. It all goes a bit jungle-warfare again here, but I don't want to say much else about the stuff that follows as it will ruin the HUGE and OBVIOUS twist. I will reveal that the movie does culminate in Rosanna dressing up as a Filipino hooker, a ninja getting shot in the back during a swordplay demonstration, an explosive escape in a stolen truck and a helicopter flyover resulting in total machine-gun destruction of some huts. Ransom also goes apeshit with his machine gun just like the first movie, screaming "RAARRRGHHHHH!!!!!".

Special mention must go to the music - it's brilliant. There are three distinct pieces of music: the suspenseful seg-way used when evil people are on the screen or Ransom is hiding behind a door, the Indiana Jones theme ripoff played when Ransom is swining from vines and kicking Ninja arse, and the Carry On style slapstick tune. The best part about it is the slapstick music is sometimes played over serious scenes.

In my opinion, as good as the first movie is, this one has the edge. The first was played entirely straight which made the funny scenes hilarious in a 'bad movie' kind of way. The sequel has genuine comedic moments which are funny, usually in their failed attempt at being funny. The best line by far would have to be this interchange between Rosanna Boom and Kramet:

Kramet: "I hate women."
Rosanna: "Yeah I have a lot of gay friends too."
Kramet: "I HATE QUEERS."
Rosanna: "You're hurting me!"

Just like the first Strike Commando, make sure you track down and watch the sequel. They run together well as a double feature as the second isn't just more of the same, but it's familiar enough to keep a theme going. I think the best way to end this double-feature review is with a line from the man Sgt. Michael Ransom himself:

"How do you say goodbye in Russian? Auf Wiedersehen!"

The Video:

Both pictures are on the soft side and washed out but unless a DVD ever comes out, these are definitely the best ways to watch the movies. The first Strike Commando is presented in 4:3 and there are scenes that are obviously trimmed to fit the screen. The sequel however is presented in roughly 1.78:1 letterbox and blows up quite nicely on a 16:9 display. The sound on both are fine with nice and clear explosions.

Sourced From:

Two separate eBay sellers for a pretty penny each. For a rough idea of what to expect, I paid AU$20 and AU$40 plus postage for each of these tapes and I think I got pretty lucky. Runtime about 90 minutes each.

Trailers:

More Screens:

Strike Commando:

Strike Commando 2:

Road House 2: Last Call (2006)

Tagline:

Take it outside.

Back of DVD:

From drunken fist-fights to all-out brawls, the Black Pelican is known for its rough and rowdy atmosphere. But for one local drug-trafficer, it's prime real estate. Determined to make the road house his personal office by any means necessary, Wild Bill (Busey) starts a war with the Pelican's owner Nate (Patton). But when things turn sour, Nate enlists help from his nephew, undercover DEA agent Shane Tanner (Schaech). Seeing the opportunity to make the biggest bust of his career - and exact a lethal dose of revenge along the way - Shane takes over the Pelican for his battered uncle... but he's about to discover this local drug ring is bigger than ever imagined.

Movie Review:

In the comments of a Michael Dudikoff movie Black Thunder over at the DTV Connoisseur, Matt and venom discussed briefly Road House 2. Venom was a fan of it but Matt thinks it's a "sack-of-asscrack DTV cashgrab". Now somehow I've managed to never seen the original Patrick Swayze movie, like many "classics" of 80's action that I am catching up on. The other week I was trawling for a non-bootleg bargain in Chinatown when I tripped over this DTV sequel for only a few bucks. Thinking back to Matt's hilarious comment and vow to never review the movie, I knew I had to take a gamble and give it a go.

After the old owner of the Black Pelican bar, Nate Tanner (Will Patton), turfs out some wannabe drug dealers who insist he sells his bar to the local drug lord (Wild Bill), he receives a strange phone call saying his staff aren't loyal and for the full details he should go meet this mysterious stranger. It of course turns out to be Wild Bill who sends his grunts in to fight and get their arse handed to them, impressively, by Patton. Wild Bill gets the upper hand and his Go-Go style sidekick girl throws knives at him, then throws him into the lake.

Elsewhere at a strip bar a drug deal is going down between Shane Tanner (Johnathon Schaech) and a token spanish guy. Just as the deal goes through, a busty barmaid busts out her weapon (by that I mean sidearm) and puts the two under arrest for trafficking. She cuffs Shane, takes him into the back room and straddles him. All the boys in the audience cheer (I assume). Shane is freed and we realise he is an undercover DEA agent. He get's chewed out by his boss (of course) and then receives a phone call about his uncle Nate Tanner in hospital. Deciding to find out what happened Shane travels to Louisiana to get revenge and run the Black Pelican bar. The first thing he does is throw out the trash at the bar and take over running the joint.

I'd never heard of Johnathon Schaech before this. He is in slasher Laid to Rest that I've been meaning to check out for ages now, and also in it's upcoming sequel. He did an all right job as Shane Tanner and kicked a fair bit of arse when it was called for, and helps pretty blonde girls change their car tyres as well (Ellen Hollman playing Beau). Beau is quite hot and quickly gets into Shane's pants. When she hears that Wild Bill is planning on killing him at the bar at night she keeps him away from the Black Pelican with sex. It only keeps him away so long though and in the end they both go. This is a good thing as Beau (a school teacher who is, you guessed it, ex military) gets into a full cat-fight with Wild Bill's crazy sidekick girl! That's what the punters want to see! There's also a pretty funny fight in the hospital between the still-injured Nate Tanner and Wild Bill's thugs.

The action dissipates a bit by the middle before the end movie climax, and normally this would really annoy me. Surprisingly I felt the story was strong enough to keep me interested when the action quotient was low. Also the overacting of Jake Busey kept the whole thing cracking along as well. It all ends in a big old fashion shoot-em-up and more bar room brawls as Shane cleans up this town.

The bar room fights were all quite good, though with the excessive back-of-the-head viewpoints shown I have to assume there was a lot of stunt double action going on. There was a bit of zooming in sometimes but mostly you could see the fights pretty clearly. I was also happy not to see any MTV-style ADD editing. Actually the whole movie, whilst looking like a standard Sony DTV movie (think Connor's War or any Seagal/Snipes of late) still felt quite old school, which was refreshing.

Jake Busey really is hilarious as Wild Bill, and yes, he is Gary Busey's son (that reminds me, I really need to do some Gary Busey movies here) and just like Machete he gets the ladies - a great lesbian spa scene is included for those who are interested (all of you). His deal in this is that for some reason the location of the bar would be perfect for hosting drug deals. That's all really, and he just wants the bar. I had wondered where I had seen this guy before and it dawned on me; he was the crazy religious nutter in Contact that blows himself up. He was frightening in that movie but is just ridiculous in Roadhouse 2. He reminded me a bit of the white kid in your street who wants to be a "gangsta" like his idols and spends his whole time overacting and holding a pretend gun sideways. He's never really frightening as a drug lord. In fact it feels like he has daddy issues. I could be reading into something that isn't there, but either way, Wild Bill is no Kill Bill.

Here's the bait-and-switch however. Richard Norton doesn't turn up till the half way point and then only has a few lines on an expensive boat. He does eventually land in Louisiana when Shane has made life tough for Norton's cronies - and yes there is a reasonable fight between him and Schaech - but still he doesn't do much else. His accent is all over the place too. If I hadn't known beforehand and you had told me afterwards that he was Australian, I wouldn't believe you. It's like an ungodly mix of American-South African-New Zealand.

So there you have it; it's not brilliant but in the end I was entertained. There were fights that weren't half bad, a few boobs and even an explosion (just a car smashing into two others). I'm sure that if I had see the first movie and was comparing the two, it would not come off so well, but that just isn't the case. Sorry Matt, it's two to one in favour for this now.

The Video:

Sharp, clear and vibrant like most modern DTV affairs. Clear, punchy surround audio. Runtime 83 minutes.

Sourced From:

Some random shop in Chinatown for $5.

Trailer:

More Screens: