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Reviews
Solarbabies (1986)
Possibly the worst movie ever made, in a good way.
This film is a riot. It's badness is epic. It is hard to know where to begin in terms of describing the experience of Solarbabies, but one could start by saying that a central episode involves a chase scene of children dramatically escaping from a futuristic special-forces police force by ROLLER SKATING through the DESERT. I am not making this up.
The completely random plot and incredulously goofy bonding/friendship scenes between the child-prisoners and their glowing-ball alien friend could only have been the product of coked-out brainstorming sessions of Hollywood types in the 80s.
Are children lovable prisoners of a Nazi-Fetish, post-apocalyptic corporation/government agency that inexplicably decides to profit by running a child-labor camp in the desert? Check. Are the children also forced to play an arena sport involving roller skates? Check. Does a glowing alien ball appear randomly and befriend the children, with no apparent connection to anything else in the film? Check. Do the children breakdance with the glowing alien ball-friend? Check. Does the glowing alien ball require the children to escape the prison and go on a quest? Yep. Do the children "escape" simply by roller-skating away from the "prison" (through a desert)? Um, yes. Does the glowing alien ball-friend require the children to join hands in a ritualized new-age circle of friendship/love in order to achieve its full glowing alien ball powers? You betcha.
If this movie were any better, I would give it one star. But it charges so far past the normal constraints of the badness boundaries that it comes out on the other side and emerges as something that is actually pretty entertaining and fairly compelling. The bar starts out low, but the filmmakers just keep on lowering it, going way past the zero point, and actually discovering new ways to make a bad movie worse. It is like art in reverse.
Darkman (1990)
Good stuff for genre buffs
This is not nearly as polished and engaging as Sam Raimi's blockbuster Spider-Man films, nor is it as idiosyncratic and imaginative as his earlier Evil Dead series, but it is a pretty neat horror/superhero adventure for those with a taste for such things. Neither as strident nor as fascistic as Robocop, but of a kind with it, Darkman brings in elements of goofy camp and gruesome horror in a way that somehow feels good-natured and light in spite of the gore. The mad-scientist bits and lurid psychological melodrama are much better than the overblown action sequences that dominate the second half of the film.
Liam Neeson is unexpected and very good as a horribly disfigured scientist-turned-crimefighter (the physical acting is fantastic), but the role seems tailor-made for Bruce Campbell, to whom it was supposedly first offered. Like many aspects of Darkman, the casting of Neeson seems like part of an incomplete transition. Darkman is part B-Movie homage, part summer blockbuster, but instead of finding a seamless blend (ala Indiana Jones or Raimi's Spider Man), Darkman the film seems to suffer from the same kinds of internal conflict as the character. Alternating scenes seem almost to be spliced in from different movies. Parts of it seem forced, as though trying to be "Hollywood," and the film is not better for it.
Especially towards the end, the dialog, hijinks, and explosions start to become a little "stock" and the tightly-woven comic-book gestalt breaks down somewhat, trading in vivid and brightly-colored for clumsy and paper-thin.
In spite of its shortcomings, Darkman is still much richer and more imaginative than most superhero films, in addition to being quite violent. Probably not a favorite of mothers or school psychologists, but it's like chocolate cake for your inner 12-year-old boy.
Domino (2005)
Probably better than a TV cop show
Bad but moderately entertaining. Will it be your favorite movie? Probably not. Will you like it better than whatever's on cable tonight? If this is the sort of movie to catch your eye, probably.
Domino is a tough, sexy young female bounty hunter who lives in a slick, stylish world of TV cop clichés as she scours the mean streets of LA for bail-jumpers alongside her comic-book sidekicks. Soft-focus flashbacks to a troubled past and shaky camera work prove that this nunchuck-wielding femme fatale means business. A reality TV shows starts to follow her around, and she's on the verge of being a WB superstar when the team gets caught up in a dangerous doublecross/inside job.
Was the real Domino more interesting and three-dimensional than this heavily fictionalized version? One would hope so, but unfortunately sometimes the most outlandish life stories are the ones hardest to dramatize. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction usually needs a plot, villains, and life lessons that truth doesn't always provide. Domino's life story might make for a first-rate documentary, but in this case it amounts to a fairly forgettable off-the-shelf action flick.
Smithereens (1982)
Late-night VHS classic
Things to be aware of: This movie is a downer.
This movie is interminably slow at times. Feel free to skip forward with the remote. There is not a lot of plot to miss.
Having offered those two disclaimers, this movie is definitely worth watching if you are inclined towards depressing tales of urban outcasts. Like most, this one centers around a subculture, but is really about the kind of tragic dreamers that seem drawn to failure like moths to a porch light.
What makes this story so compelling in spite of the rather amateurish acting and film-making is the gradual, offhand, and absolutely realistic ways in which the different characters casually dig themselves into ever more inescapable holes.
This is a story not about the 80s or punk rock, it's a story about young people with unfocused ambition who are sucked in by the glamor of the scene, whatever it may be. These are the fashion victims we've all known: people who have a new best friend every week, with whom are going to write a screenplay, go on a road trip, start a band, whatever. The people who are too busy and too cool to be cared about unless you're going to make them famous, people who do not realize that the glittering lights of the city at night are just stores and bars, who keep thinking that one of them is going to turn out to be magic, who see everyday life as some kind of hoax that they won't be conned into falling for.
What is beautiful about "Smithereens" is the perfect depiction of the blind, frantic pursuit of a better, purer, more exciting life that leads to the opposite. The sad, romantic naiveté that looks for rescue in a bar at 2am is a target for every kind of leech whose belief in magic has burned out and turned to cynical opportunism. The neophyte victims gradually and seamlessly become predators themselves, preying on others who are looking for late-night magic. Dreams of romance, fame, and adventure become grubbing squabbles over sex and money and these dreamers don't even see it happening until, disdainful of everything, they end up with nothing.