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Reviews
Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light (1987)
overlooked 80's classic
I used to be a big visionaries fan back in the late 80's, and was slightly miffed when it disappeared into thin air. Fast forward about 18 years later and I received a DVD with all 13 episodes. It is still as entertaining as it was when I was a wee 10 year old all those years ago. I would go as far as saying it was even better than a certain animated series called Master's Of The The Universe (lets face it the animation was ropey,they seemed to use the same frames of animation for every episode and don't get me started on the damn "the moral of this story is..." style endings) that lasted for about 80 episodes,spawned a rubbish movie and is currently being revived as I write. The action takes place on the planet Prysmos a futuristic world that is thrown into disarray when the age of magic arrives, causing its inhabitants to live a near medieval existence. A mysterious wizard known as Merklyn issues a challenge I.E anyone brave enough to brave the traps and monsters in Iron Mountain will be granted magical powers. Only 14 make it and are granted a totem (an animal that represents their personalities and can therefore turn into) and a magic staff ( with which They can call on spiritual entities with names such as Destruction,Wisdom,Speed etc by reciting a poem) and are told by Merklyn to use their powers to aid the world. The lucky recipients split off into factions i.e The good Spectral Knights led by Leoric and the evil Darkling Lords led by Darkstorm Both the spectral knights and darkling lords were all rounded characters (e.g Ectar (Leoric's right hand man) a highly decorated cop in the age of science who cant seem to forget his former profession. The episode where he squares off against his arch nemesis Reekon a former master thief,with its ending showing the pair parting ways having shown each other mutual respect, is a doozy.) All 13 episodes were well written,funny,dark and gripping with top notch voice acting. The Darkling lords were always the characters that made every episode worth watching, my personal favourite being Darkstorm's snivelling serf Mortdredd voiced superbly my the former Dr Zachary Smith himself Jonathan Harris.In my opinion He deserved to be one of most memorable cartoon characters of 80's but alas it never happened the toys didn't sell particularly well and in a few short years the franchise fizzled out.
Hudson Hawk (1991)
don't take it too seriously and you might enjoy it
there are many god awful movies in the world such as problem child, zardoz, shanghai surprise, The lost world etc. But I fail to see why Hudson Hawk is ranked as one the the worse ever made. I dare you not to raise a smile at Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello singing You could be swinging on a star, while in the midst of stealing an artifact from a museum. Willis,again,riding on a runaway gurney,throwing loose change into a toll booth to avoid being hit by a roadblock. The late James Coburn launching into kung fu fight scene. Andie Mcdowall's rubbish dolphin impression. a pre NYPD David Caruso as a mime (!) Its got something for everyone I tell you! I'm not saying it's a classic , Richard E Grant and Sandra Bernhard most win the award for the most irritating screen villains of all time and there is some blatant product placement disguised as a joke(secret agents with the code names of different chocolate bars, it even shows them eating the things for chrissake!!!),and it gets a little self indulgent at times.But to summarise I'd rather watch this film on a loop than sit through a single viewing of The Bonfire of the Vanities ever again. (whisper it) its not that bad a movie really.