Equalizer 2000 (1988)

Tagline:

The Final War Is Over. The Battle's Just Begun.

Movie Review:

In a post-apocalyptic future, the world's population now seems to live in a desert wasteland where Alaska once was. The ruling government, known as The Ownership, is ruthless in its control on what little is left of the oil supply. This has caused a rebel faction to exist who want better treatment and fairer access to the oil. The Ownership rule with an iron fist so have been waging a fierce battle against the rebels and are on the verge of winning. During a routine firefight, the father of Slade (Richard Norton, pictured above shirtless), a soldier working for The Ownership, is killed. Slade goes in to help against the orders of Colonel Lawton (William Steis). He is hit by a rebel, knocked out and taken away. Eventually accepted by the rebels, Slade is now a wanted enemy of The Ownership and exists only to kill Lawton and destroy the ruling government.

It's a simple enough plot and it certainly doesn't need any more explanation than that because this movie is amazing. It is literally wall to wall gunfire and explosions. I'm not talking about the kind of action referred to on the back of a modern day "action thriller" DVDs ("A five-star roller-coaster thrill-ride of action and excitement!") that never lives up to its promise. Equalizer 2000 is totally and utterly off the freaking chain EXPLOSIVE ACTION, brought to us by Roger Corman's long time producer Cirio H. Santiago. It's 84 minutes of solid action with numerous firefights, officers in ridiculous uniforms, a few punch-ups, car chases in Interceptor-like cars with spikes stuck to their chassis, cars jumping over chasms, flamethrowers mounted to artillery, a tribe of mountain folk that fire bows and arrows and exploding cars. If that doesn't convince you perhaps the inclusion of the lovely Corinne Wahl as Karen, Slade's love interest in the movie will.

Let's talk about the gun on the cover for a second. I'm sure you are as used as me to covers being ten times more awesome than the contents of the tape or DVD inside; perhaps even the scenes on the cover not even occurring in the movie at all. Not so here. The gun that is pictured above indeed features in the movie. In fact the movie is named after the gun - the Equalizer 2000! It is an almost-complete super-weapon that Slade helps finish in a montage that focuses on Norton's pecs as much as the gun itself. It's a thing of beauty that shoots automatic rounds as well as rockets; a bit like a less-graceful attempt at what Ripley has at the end of Aliens. He then proceeds to lay waste to The Ownership army with it time and time again. It's easily one of my five favourite movie weapons, right up there with the minigun in Predator.

Richard Norton is awesome in this. He only speaks a few times - his strong Australian accent shines through here, probably intentionally kept so as to remind us that this is a Mad Max rip-off - the rest of the time he is kicking arse left, right and centre. The only downtime he has is to polish his gun and quickly romance Corinne Wahl's character. He's certainly in physically great fighting form. I would have enjoyed seeing him in a sequel to this. Equalizer 2001 perhaps? Equalizer 3000 - Norton is cryogenically frozen and thawed out to chase down a rogue criminal? Perhaps that is too similar to Demolition Man, but it would be cool.

You know who else is in this movie? Terminator 2's Robert Patrick in a very early movie role for him. He plays Deke, neither a rebel or army soldier, just a trouble maker who buys and sells fuel for water. He get's interrogated by Colonel Lawton and along with his associates is drafted immediately into the service of The Ownership. Asside from pleading for his life, he turns up later when kidnapping Karen to encourage Slade to come after them. Patrick would seem to owe his career to producer/director Santiago as all his early roles were on his movies. The more you know!

IMDB says that parts of this movie were edited into another Norton/Steis/Santiago post-apocalyptic action flick, Raiders of the Sun. I can believe that this is possible; If I had made this movie I would want to rip it off for future movies as well, it's just that good. I have that movie coming to me in the post so we shall see how that plays out in a future review. Santiago had produced or directed plenty of schlock trash cinema in the Philippines right up to his death in 2008, including a bunch of the Bloodfist movies, One Man Army, Final Mission, Naked Fist and as recent as the Mark Dacascos movies The Hunt for Eagle One and its sequel. We shall surely be seeing more of his work on Explosive Action soon.

If it wasn't obvious, you need to see this movie. This is precisely the kind of movie that this site was made for. There is no DVD of this which is a real shame, so VHS is your only (legal) option. I learnt something when I was acquiring this - the US tape put out by MGM, which the DTVC reviewed on his blog, is actually cut by about ten minutes (running at around 75 minutes). There is a pretty in depth comparison of the UK and US tapes over at movie-censorship.com and it would seem that a lot of the action scenes were shortened on the MGM tape. It was pure luck that I found my Australian issue CBS FOX tape which, based on the link above, is the same as the UK tape.

However you do see this movie, make it happen. Stop reading this review and start looking through those thrift stores and eBay auctions now for your very own copy of Equalizer 2000. And thanks to DTVC for bringing it to my attention in the first place.

The Video:

As mentioned above, I reviewed the PAL Australian release tape put out by CBS FOX in 1987. The picture quality was amazing for it's age, budget and the fact it's a 25 year old video tape. The sky is actually blue, the sand looks sandy and people's skin isn't orange or green, as tends to happen with some tapes. The sound was fantastic with every gunshot and explosion shaking my speakers. Runtime 84 minutes, plus previews.

Sourced From:

eBay for $16, and I'd pay twice or three times the amount again.

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Storm Catcher (1999)

Tagline:

To fight the winds of war, he must enter the eye of the storm.

Movie Review:

Major Jack Holloway (Dolph Lundgren) is a test pilot for the Army and along with his copilot Captain Lucas (Jon Pennel) and ground support/comedy relief Captain "Sparks" Johnson (Mystro Clark). Sparks is a name you would give to an engineer, not ground support, but anyway. After a successful test of the new Storm Catcher stealth fighter, Holloway takes a short holiday with Sparks and his family where he helps coach his daughters little league and roasts marshmallows while camping. It's pretty strange to see the guy who once wore a necklace of ears in Universal Soldier roasting marshmallows but it's funny all the same. His wife Jessica is played by Kiwi super model actress Kylie Bax and she keeps her accent throughout, which stands out a country mile. Also she can't act, at least in this one her first role. She went on to join Dolph again in the thriller Jill Rips which I haven't seen so perhaps she got better.

Anyway, Holloway gets bleeped back to work so has to leave his family shindig. Cut to the army base where a person in Holloway's uniform (why do they need space suits for a stealth fighter anyway?) has entered the Storm Catcher hanger and proceeded to shoot all the other soldiers with a silenced pistol. The mask is down so we never see his face but his thumb print security matched Hollway's so it must be him, right? Outside, a pair of rebel assassin/sabotuer types dressed in black clothes and black face paint arm bombs to the hanger door, blow the place watch as Captain Lucas flies away with the secret jet. Yup, he's crossed the Army.

The next day in the desert heat, Major Holloway stumbles onto the road looking for his family, with no clue as to how he got there. He is questioned by the military and all evidence points to him having killed all those soldiers and stealing the secret jet but he has no memory of it. He's piled into a prisoner security van and taken away but on route the van is hit with a missile and explodes. Luckily Holloway is okay and is pulled from the wreckage by more rebels who take him away in an ice cream van.

This is pretty good Dolph. It has a stronger storyline than some of his other movies (and also more stock footage) but it still hits pretty high on its action quota, and doesn't get lost in any convoluted plot-trappings. Put simply, Dolph gets framed so tries to clear his name and get his plane back. There's a few beatings but it's mainly firearms action here and resulting explosions in slow motion, and there's quite a lot of that. Holloway manages to free himself from the confines of the Ice Cream truck and steal a weapon. He heads home to check on his family but more assassins were waiting and gas the place. Holloway protects his family and takes out the bad guys but his wife is shot and hospitalised. From then on Hollway is on the run and trying to find out what's really going on here, mowing down bad guys on the way.

There's a bit of light-hearted comedy on display here and not all of it works. I'm not sure what the producers were thinking with the inclusion of the two X-Files style CIA secret agents - Agent Lock and Agent Load, and no I'm not making that up - but they are surely only there for the comedy relief. Agent Lock is played by Kimberley Davies, a name familiar to any Australian who watched the daily soap Neighbours during the 90's. Thankfully she attempts to fit in with the crowd by emulating an American accent; I wish Kylie Bax had done the same.

Agent Load, played by British actor Anthony Hickox (also in Jill Rips, and Seagal actioner Submerged) puts on an awful southern drawl that's gotta be played for kicks. He asks the General if he had noticed any strange "BEE-haviour" with Holloway, to which the General responds "No strange.. BEE.. haviour." Sigh. Oh and the kids that slap the bomb on the door kiss it first and say "Blow me". Ugh. Some of Dolph's quips are worthy, however, and one of the scenes he has when he pretends to be from Brooklyn so that he can steal a plane is pretty funny. He also has a punch-on with a 250Kg beast of a man who collapses on top of him when he goes down.

Storm Catcher does feature one of my personal dislikes that I've mentioned before; somebody hacking the Hollywood OS. This shit annoys me in every movie I see. While on the run, Holloway asks "Sparks" to investigate the dog tags from the assassins in the ice cream truck. No problem, "Sparks" is a computer whizz it seems and sneaks into a secure lab and starts typing away. When greeted with the usual 'access denied' red rubber stamp message, he just taps in some random gibberish and away she goes, 'access granted'. I hate this crap.

Storm Catcher is better than some of his other movies like Detention and The Defender and with higher production values, but it's not as good as his later crazy movies Command Performance and Direct Contact. About on par with Sweepers or The Shooter I'd say. You can't really go wrong with it but nothing really stands out. A solid Dolph effort, recommended to anyone who likes a bit of airforce action.

The Video:

The R1 disc is dual sided; 16:9 on one side and 4:3 on the other. I watched the widescreen version and it was nice and sharp with well-defined colours and strong blacks. The soundtrack was clear and explosive. The movie really benefited from the orchestral scoring and not typically mindless, generic rock. Runtime 95 minutes.

Sourced From:

eBay for one English pound.

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Out for Blood (1992)

Tagline:

Lawyer by day... Vigilante by night.

Movie Review:

DTVC reviewed this the other day and Comeuppance Reviews in late 2010, and it reminded me that I have had this PM entertainment movie on a double-disc with Lorenzo Lamas Final Impact for months now. So, I decided to give it a spin today and see if my thoughts on the movie were in line with Matt's and Ty's.

Don "The Dragon" Wilson plays John Decker the attorney, which is hilarious in itself as the few scenes we see of him in his office surrounded by books, wearing big glasses and ordering an unseen secretary to bring him files, is about as far removed from Don the kickboxer as you could get. Don is seeing a psychologist for the recurring dreams he is having from his past where on a night out with with wife and son he is brutally beaten and his family killed by drug runners. Some doctors say he has 'selective amnesia' as he only remembers brief glimpses of the night. On a late night run Don disturbs a cocaine transaction, and that's when Don "The Vigilante" Wilson takes matters into his own hands to clean up the drug runners in the town. The media gets behind him and he is dubbed "Karateman", the vigilante cleaning up the town where the cops have failed.

This is a pretty sweet PM action flick. Don is definitely at the top of his game here, sporting his martial arts prowess and his famous grimmeses when attacking foes. In fact, his facial expressions are so awesome I have dedicated the screenshot gallery in this review purely to Don's face. There are at least half a dozen real fights in the Out for Blood, spred out pretty evenly so that when the movie does get a little bogged down in plot exposition it isn't long before someone's jaw is broken or groin displaced. This is also a benefit as Don, let's face it, is no Academy award winner. He is at his best when applying foot to face or clinging to the hood of a moving vehicle. Don also gives a few not-so-classic quips ("What are you looking at?", "Dirt!") when he dispatches bad guys so be sure to pay attention to those.

Don's love interest in the movie Joanna is played by Shari Shattuck, who has previously been in Seagal's On Deadly Ground, little-known horror movie Death Spa and 1986 Canon produced 'Women in Prison' movie The Naked Cage. I don't know what she is like in those movies (I haven't even seen On Deadly Ground yet at the time of this review) but in this she sports a terrible British accent, like Angelina Jolie as the Tomb Raider. IMDB says she was born in Atlanta, USA, and I don't see why the producers felt the need to give her the accent. Perhaps because she is an art dealer, therefore needed to sound upper-class? Also, Michael Delano from one of my favourite early reviews, Peter Weller's Top of the World, is back at a Lieutenant again, which is nice to see.

The movie has most of the ingredients from the action movie checklist to make it a near classic. Plenty of brutal hand to hand combat? A machine gun shootout at a train yard? A drug runner with a mullet haircut and cowboy boots who kills his own men when they fail him? Crashing vans through the door of a warehouse? Stuntmen falling off eight story buildings onto a car? A sensei who dispatches helpful advice on Chi? Running from an exploding drug lab full of cardboard boxes? Beautiful girlfriend being held hostage? The hero a lone warrior with a dark past? All boxes checked.

Out for Blood could have only been better if Don was actually a grizzled ex-military and visited a strip club at least once, after his partner of eight years was killed during a raid - then it would have ticked all the boxes. However it makes up for this with the awesome ending that has the bad guy explain Don's past to him in full detail before attempting to flee in a biplane in the middle of a shootout! It's even better when Don chases after the biplane on a Jeep!

There's not much more I can really say on the movie as the plot is wafer thin and the fights speak for themselves. This should be easy and cheap to pick up so make sure you do if you want a night of solid bad-action entertainment, curtesy of Don, The Karateman.

The Video:

Simply put, this was bad. Australia's Payless Entertainment do a great range of RRP $2 double-feature action DVDs however they jam two movies onto one single layer disc. This results in serious encoding artefacts that spring up when there is any motion. The source video was soft enough to begin with being a cheap DTV PM movie, but the quick NTSC to PAL conversion makes it even harder to deal with. Still, it's watchable but if you see the VHS around I'd suggest picking that up instead or importing the R1 or R2, but for $2 with Final Impact on it as well you really can't complain. Runtime (of Out for Blood) 90 minutes.

Sourced From:

$2 bargain bins.

Trailer:

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