Number 76: The Final Sacrifice (1990)
I’ve watched films from all over the globe for this list:
India, Germany, Norway, China even Iran. Now I get to see what America’s
cousins to the North, Canada have to offer in this well, I guess it’s a Sci-Fi-fantasy, I'm not really sure.
There’s a cult of bodybuilders in leather masks who are looking
for a city of a lost civilisation, led by a guy in a suit who is reminiscent of
Kurrgan from Highlander with a little
bit of Agent Smith. His character is called Satoris. Well, he is a snappy
dresser.
Then there is Troy, a kid trying to find out what had
happened to his father, this upsets the cult and they try to kill him, very
badly. In trying to get away, Troy escapes on a bicycle which the villains
couldn’t possibly be keep up with in their mere car. That would be ridiculous.
He comes across a guy called Zap Rowsdower. Zap Rowsdower.
Zap Rowsdower, a name that manages to be both brilliant and ridiculous at the
same time. Our Zap used to be a member of the cult but I guess he was kicked
out for getting too flabby.
They find a weird bearded guy in the woods with the most Old
West accent you’ll ever find. He’s basically there for exposition purposes
filling in the blanks of what happened to Troy’s father and explaining all
about the lost civilisation. The Ziox were more advanced than the ancient Egyptians, ooh impressive.
Apparently if our dynamic duo they don’t beat Agent Satoris
to the lost city it means the END OF THE WORLD. Why I’m not sure but it does,
accept it.
They find the city, kill Sartoris and the city floats up and
flies away. At least I think it does. It definitely floats and then disappears.
I think it flew but it could have just spontaneously dissolved. I don’t know
why this happened. Nothing makes sense in this movie.
There was something that was bothering me throughout this
movie and it took me until near the end to figure it out. There are no women in
this movie. I went back through it, Troy has an aunt who speaks one line at the
start and disappears for the rest of the movie. And that’s it for female
involvement. No tacked on love interests, no kickass henchwomen. Now, whether
the token inclusion of a female character would have improved this film is
debatable but it’s weird to see such a male-heavy production.
To sum up The Final
Sacrifice it’s dull in places but some of the characters are so over the
top and the scenarios so ridiculous that you can’t help but find yourself
revelling in it’s stupidity.
Number 75: R.O.T.O.R (1987)
Remember The
Terminator? And Robocop? Weren’t
they great? Great action and stories, memorable characters. Wouldn’t it be
great if you could combine the two? Well, not if R.O.T.O.R. is anything to go by.
R.O.T.O.R stands for Robotic Officer Tactical Operations
Research. He’s designed to be the ultimate in law enforcement but something
goes wrong, he breaks out of his laboratory and goes on a killing spree.
Stepping in for Sarah Connor is Sony (Margaret Trigg),
R.O.T.O.R becomes fixated on her after he kills her fiancé for speeding. Dallas
is tough, zero tolerance on these things. So far, so stupid. These things
matter, people. The Terminator is relentless in its pursuit of Sarah Connor
because that’s what it is programmed to do and killing her wins the future war
for the machines (well, maybe, you can argue for hours about Terminator timelines), here Sony is
being relentlessly chased because she was in the car at the same time someone
was speeding.
Trying to stop the unstoppable machine is a scientist called
Coldyron (pronounced cold-iron, yeah we’re doing well on silly names today). He
fancies himself as a Clint Eastwood Dirty
Harry type and was responsible for creating R.O.T.O.R.
Just a word on R.O.T.O.R.’s appearance, he really doesn’t
look that threatening. Terminator worked
because Arnold Schwarzenegger had an intimidating presence, even if he wasn’t
an unstoppable killing machine you’d keep your distance. R.O.T.O.R. just looks
like an average and slightly overweight guy. In reality, that might work out
better for R.O.T.O.R. but in films not so much.
Chilledbronze brings in a woman called Steele, who’s a bit
like Vasquez in Aliens. Even though
she’s called Dr. I’m not sure if she’s actually a scientist or a soldier but
since she gets killed about 5 minutes after being introduced, it doesn’t really
matter. He’s also ‘helped’ by a robot who is a lot like the one from Rocky IV and is what passes for comic
relief in this movie.
So Lukewarmzinc sets a trap to capture the killing machine
that involves using Sony as bait and then blowing it up. Does he succeed? All I’ll
say is, there isn’t a R.O.T.O.R. 2.
Everything about R.O.T.O.R.
is wrong. The acting is bad, especially Coolaluminium but that might not
entirely be actor Richard Gesswein’s fault since the audio doesn’t seem to
match with what is on the screen. This suggests all the audio was recorded
later and just adds to the amateur feel of the production.
The film makes clumsy attempts at social commentary (who is
the real monster? The unstoppable killing machine or is it something a little
closer to home, the monster we call, man? It’s the first one). As I said at the
start, it’s a mesh of Terminator and Robocop but only all the worst parts.
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