The Cat From Outer Space

You probably won’t remember this, but in the late Seventies Disney coughed up a huge, cinematic fur ball.

Cineastes like to portray the Disney story as one long, unspooling reel of movie success. And certainly, for generations now – from Fantasia to Jungle Book to Toy Story and right up to Frozen – the studio has served up many cast-iron hits that will endure.

But study their back catalogue carefully and you’ll soon find that not every movie is a hidden gem. The Seventies, in particular, was a very tough time. After creepy old Walt died (and, according to legend, was stuffed in a cryogenic chamber, like a billionaire deep-frozen pizza) the wheels rather came off the Disney bus for quite a few years.

Bad decisions were made, and bad movies were the result.

Suddenly, the studio that had always been associated with a singular mouse became famous for a multitude of turkeys. And for a prime example of the kind of hokum Mickey’s men served up, look no further than The Cat From Outer Space (1978).

The plot

When his spaceship malfunctions an extra-terrestrial, with the appearance of a domestic cat, crash lands on Earth.

In order to repair his craft, the interstellar feline – who happens to have telekinetic powers - enlists the help of a friendly earthling.

But the Martian moggy’s task is complicated by the US army who seize his spacecraft and begin a hunt for the alien invader.

So, can the cosmonautic cat return safely to space? Or will it be captured, forcibly interrogated and subjected to horrific, vivisectional experiments by a secretive military intelligence unit?

Of course, Exploding Helicopter would never dream of spoiling the ending for you. But given this is a Disney kids’ film, one can be reasonably confident that the movie doesn’t close on a shot of the puss’ surgically-opened ribcage.

Who’s in this?

The cast provides an early indication that this film is made by a studio executives not entirely at the top of their game. Without an encyclopaedic knowledge of American television in the Seventies you’d be hard pushed to recognise the main actors. But there are a few more famous names among the players.

Harry Morgan plays General Stilton, the gruff, order-barking army man tasked with hunting down the titular cat. Best known as the avuncular Colonel Potter in the legendary and long-running comedy MASH, Morgan appears to relish the opportunity to play against type.

The mellifluous voiced Roddy McDowell (Planet of the Apes and its many sequels) also turns up as a saboteur seeking to snag the alien’s technology for his evil boss. Now, our Roderick was always an entertaining and playful performer, and it takes a special talent to drag a bad performance out of him – but this movie manages it.

The poor lad is utterly wasted in a small and woefully underwritten role. (It’s worth noting that he managed to convey much more emotion in the Apes movies, and that was with two pounds of monkey-plastic hanging off his face.)

There’s also a part for James Hampton. While the name may not be familiar, his perennially genial face certainly will be. Seemingly born into the world as a middle-aged suburban dad, he enjoyed a long career in family-friendly television programmes. Though he is perhaps best known to film fans as Michael J Fox’s father, and fellow lupine, in Eighties favourite Teen Wolf.

From Walt Disney to Walt Dismal

So, how did Disney become so dismal?

After old Walt shuffled off to that great Iceland freezer in the sky (well, Los Angeles) in 1966, the company became gripped by a terrifying artistic malaise. Robbed of their creative catalyst, the studio’s output increasingly came to lack the spark with which it had made its name. (Who remembers, or for that matter has ever heard of, Napoleon and Samantha, Run Cougar Run, or Ride A Wild Pony?)

There’s an overwhelming sense of safe choices and pulled punches. And those traits are on painful display here.

Consider the film’s premise: stranded alien befriends human. It’s loaded with possibilities. Just look at what Steven Spielberg did with it in E.T a few year later.

But where the bearded boy wonder gave us a deft blend of drama, comedy and pathos, The Cat From Outer Space gives us feeble wordplay, lamentable slapstick, and shoddy spectacle. The whole enterprise is so lacking in inspiration it doubtless had Walt spinning in his grave (or cryogenic tube, assuming you believe the rumours).

Exploding helicopter action

Given the torpor that pervades the rest of the film, it’s not surprising to find that the exploding helicopter action is similarly underwhelming.

Late in the film, the real villains turn out to a group of industrial saboteurs who want to seize the alien’s technology. When their plan fails they take a female hostage and try to escape in a helicopter (a Sud Aviation SA 341G Gazelle for all you rotor-bladed geeks out there).

For unknown reasons, the chopper suffers a malfunction that will only let it fly straight line. Unable to steer the aircraft, the bad guys don parachutes and jump out, leaving the damsel in distress to her fate. It's then up to the psychic powered feline to save her.

Using an old biplane the whiskered world traveller effects a thrilling mid-air rescue where the woman has to climb down from the Gazelle into the biplane. The pilotless copter finally sputters, goes into a spiral and disappears behind a hilltop where it explodes off-screen.

It’s a damning moment. When a film can’t even be bothered to blow up a helicopter, you know you’re in trouble.

Artistic merit

While there’s some fun and novelty to be had from watching the fixed-wing and rotor-bladed aircraft carryout an airborne joust, this good work is undone by the explosion. Or rather the complete lack of one.

Having a helicopter disappear from view before blowing-up is a directorial cheat Exploding Helicopter is sadly all too familiar with. But here, we reach a new low.

Most embarrassed auteurs would have had the good grace to send a plume of smoke skyward or give us a shot of the wreckage as token indicator that the whirlybird has been destroyed. But whether through a lack of budget, imagination or both, the director leaves the work to the sound effects – dubbing a generic explosion noise onto the soundtrack. Pathetic.

Exploding helicopter innovation

The aerial duel between helicopter and biplane is quite good. There’s some genuinely impressive stunt work as a couple of professional daredevils clamber around the outside of the helicopter and biplane. But for a better example of a dogfight between these two craft you’d be much better off watching Capricorn One which oddly came out in the same year.

First know destruction of a helicopter involving a cat with telekinetic powers.

Tagline

Sadly, the film’s funniest joke is actually its tagline. The actually quite amusing: “Close encounters of the ‘furred’ kind.”

Review by: Jafo

Takers

In many respects, this is a very convincing film: it’s a heist movie that leaves the viewer feeling like they’ve actually been robbed.

That’s right. Just check your watch at the end, and you’ll realise that those canny criminals from Takers (2010) have shamelessly robbed two hours of your life without so much as a please or thank you.

But that’s not even this movie’s biggest crime.

Oh, no. Not content with pilfering your hard-earned downtime, the film-makers have also brazenly nicked the entire plot from Michael Mann’s classic movie, Heat.

Now, that wouldn’t be a problem if Takers was a sizzling hot thriller. (Some of Exploding Helicopter’s favourite movies have been, ahem, a touch derivative. Yes, we’re looking at you, Firebirds.) Unfortunately, this low budget knock-off is little more than a lukewarm rehash of the original. They should have called it Reheated.

The plot

The story follows a group of gentlemen thieves who, when they’re not helping the poor and dispossessed (as most criminals are famously wont to do), execute elaborately staged robberies against high-value targets.

But as they plot their biggest ever payday, our merry band of outlaws find themselves pursued by a dogged cop who’s determined to bring them to book.

As the clock to the big job ticks down, we’re left wondering: will the Takers escape with the take, or will the Takers become the Taken? (At which point, Liam Neeson might well start issuing gravelly-voiced ‘Oirish’ threats on his mobile phone again. You know what he’s like about showing off his ‘special set of skills’.)

The cast

Idris Elba: "Give me the lead in a big film or I will shoot."

Given that Takers is a cheap, second tier enterprise, it’s no surprise to find that the cast is a curiously eclectic hodge-podge of nearly men and has-beens.

The dubious honour of topping the bill goes to Idris Elba, an actor for whom A-lister status remains frustratingly elusive. After justifiably coming to fame in The Wire, old Stringer Bell’s desperate efforts to elbow his way into the elite premier club have become increasingly painful to watch. And there’s literally nothing he won’t do achieve it.

Puppyishly eager to please, the aspiring star has deftly chiselled away at his own credibility with a series of unwise choices. In particular, he seems to think that any role in a big budget blockbuster is a good idea.

So he’s been a glorified doormen with a silly hat in Thor, an expendable extra in Prometheus and a tedious, cliché-spouting soldier in the execrable Pacific Rim. And who could forget his unrecognisable ‘blue muppet’ in last year’s Star Trek Beyond? Answer: everyone. (Note to Idris: There’s little point being in a film if the prosthetics mean no-one can actually see you).

Not content with these big banner bad choices, our Idris is also something of a cameo machine – with a peculiar weakness for schlocky horror pics such as Prom Night, The Reaping and 28 Weeks Later. (Complete-ists should also definitely check out his five-minute turn as a gangsta exorcism priest in ‘scary’ yawnfest The Unborn, a self-harming career choice so marked it almost counts as a cry for professional help.) And let’s not even get started on his tiresome campaign to be the next 007…

Joining the wannabe Bond in this movie are two other perennial B-listers: Paul Walker (whose pre-crash career consisted of action flicks even less memorable than the Fast & Furious series). And, wait for it: Hayden Christensen. Yes, the human balsa wood block who, in a spectacular feat of reverse alchemy, transformed an almost unprecedented career break in the Star Wars prequels into two Razzie Awards. (As Yoda might croak: “Truly terrible as an actor he is.”)

Matt Dillon: from Eighties nearly man to Noughties nobody

This unlikely trio are pitted against a resolute cop played by Eighties has-been Matt Dillon. With his immaculately chiselled cheekbones and soulful eyes, Matty oozed charisma in some of the decade’s touchstone films (Rumblefish, The Outsiders and Drugstore Cowboy). He was once even hailed as the best actor of his generation by no lesser figure than uber-film critic, Roger Ebert.

But perhaps, like the sensitive-type characters he typically played, the quiff-coiffured star didn’t quite have the mettle for the cut-throat world of a Hollywood career (where success is mostly enjoyed by robotically-driven sociopaths with the personality traits of an apex predator. Hi, Tom!). By the Noughties, Droopy-eyes Dillon’s slow descent into run-of-the-mill fare like Takers was well and truly under way. Still, it beats queuing at the job centre.

A lukewarm Heat

As Exploding Helicopter has already mentioned, Takers ransacks the plot of Heat – focussing on the ‘cat and mouse’ between the cops and robbers.

But while Heat gave us stunningly filmed LA cityscapes, a noir-tinged script, and superlatively staged action sequences, Takers instead splutters up epilepsy-inducing shakey-cam, cliché littered dialogue (“Just like old times!”) and derivate set pieces.

Such uninspired aping is bad enough, but it’s when Takers tries to be different that the problems really start.

Unlike Michael Mann’s deliberately chill portrayal of ruthless professionals, Takers desperately wants us to like the criminals. Cue awkward attempts at creating empathy.

Big Idris is given an entirely pointless sub-plot where he dutifully tries to help his drug-addicted sister. And there’s a hugely unconvincing scene where the gang divvy up the swag from their last robbery, only for Paul Walker to suddenly ask: “Ten per cent to the usual charities?” (See kids, they’re not all bad!)

The cast of Takers. Or possibly a crap Nineties boyband. 

But it’s during the central heist that the film’s bloody-minded determination to preserve the villains’ ‘good guy’ status reaches absurd levels. As their plan goes awry, our heroes find themselves locked in a gun battle with heavily armed security guards.

Despite standing just a few feet apart and spraying automatic weapons fire at each other, not one bullet hits a human form. It’s ridiculous. Star Wars’ famously target-shy Stormtroopers look like crack shots in comparison.

Exploding helicopter action

While the film blanches at depicting flesh and blood casualties, it’s fortunately not so squeamish when it comes to showing the fiery end of one of our favourite rotor-bladed friends.

Takers opens with our criminal brothers-in-arms robbing a jewellery store located on the upper floor of a skyscraper. To make their escape, Elba and his gang flee to the roof and commandeer a helicopter that, with credulity stretching convenience, just happens to have landed there.

After making their aerial getaway, our plucky anti-heroes abandon the chopper in a deserted car park. As they stroll away, one of the thieves triggers an explosive killing off the helicopter. Rest in pieces, whirlybird.

Artistic merit

Pretty good. The fuselage of a very realistic looking helicopter is blown-up without the need for any obvious digital effects. The explosion is nice and juicy with a soupcon of dramatic slow-motion. Nice.

Exploding helicopter innovation

As everyone knows, cool guys don’t look at explosions. So naturally, Elba and his gang studiously ignore the chopper fireball that erupts behind them as they slowly saunter towards camera.

We’ve seen this action movie cliché countless times before – the earliest one Exploding Helicopter has discovered is in Blue Thunder (1983). And more recently, The Expendables 3 kicked off with Sly, Stath and the rest walking away from a digital chopper explosion so terrible you almost expected to see an ‘Atari’ logo in the corner of the screen.

While we don’t object seeing this trope trotted out yet again, it would have been nice if director John Luessenhop given the scene an original twist somewhere.

Tagline

Exploding Helicopter loves a good tagline (“In space no-one can hear you scream”; “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water” etc). So it’s genuinely painful to encounter piss-poor examples of the marketing art. And Takers has some of the worst ever written.

There’s the meaningless: “Money doesn’t count.”

The feeble: “Taking theatres soon.”

And the unutterably mundane: “Everybody’s after something.”

One gets a very clear sense that, having watched the movie, the marketing team must have decided: Well, if even they couldn’t be arsed to put in any effort…

Review by: Jafo

Alone In The Dark

Given that notorious schlockmeister Uwe Boll recently announced his retirement from filmmaking, now seems an apt time to look back at what may be his most infamous film.

Adapted from a popular computer game series, Alone In The Dark (2005) was – like the rest of his unheralded cinematic canon - released to universal critical derision. Reviewers panned the terrible direction, incomprehensible story, shoddy special effects and awful acting.

Unsurprisingly, the film received a brutal thumping at the box office. And poignantly, the film’s title accurately described the audience experience for those few unhappy souls daft enough to actually traipse to a cinema and sit through this impenetrable merde.

Today, Alone In The Dark languishes in IMDB’s 100 worst movies list and has just a 1 per cent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But does it deserve its reputation as a bona fide stinker?

For reasons solely related to cataloguing an invented micro-genre of film, Exploding Helicopter sought to find out.

The plot

A paranormal investigator, Edward Carnby, hunts down artefacts belonging to a fictional Native American culture called the Abkani.

Carnby believes these objects hold the key to stopping sinister supernatural forces that are threatening the world. Not only that, the ancient artefacts could also unlock the secrets of his own mysterious childhood.

To achieve this goal, the psychic private eye must confront forces from another dimension, a shadowy government agency and most terrifyingly of all (at least in Exploding Helicopter’s experience of dating) his former girlfriend.

The cast

Christian Slater: karaoke Jack Nicholson

Our ghost-hunting hero is played by Eighties teen icon Christian Slater. Once upon a time, Young Cheeky Eyebrows was the mainstream star of cult favourites such as Heathers and True Romance.

However, he always was a one-trick pony, and his cloying karaoke-version-of-Jack-Nicholson routine inevitably started to wear on audiences. His ability to land plum roles also wasn’t helped by a string of drug, alcohol and assault convictions.

Still, one man’s misfortune is another man’s gain, and Junior Jack’s non-ringing phone meant he was available to lend the tarnished lustre of his talent to ‘paying gigs’ like Alone In The Dark. And while this won’t ever rank among the boy’s finest work, his smirking charm and mischievous air do admittedly give the often flaccid proceedings some much needed ‘watchability’.

The same cannot be said for his co-star, LA party girl turned actress, Tara Reid. Having made her name playing vacuous blondes (i.e herself) in teen comedies like American Pie and Van Wilder, the air-headed fembot was perhaps not the obvious casting choice as a brainy archaeological expert.

Those who manage to sit through the movie may not be entirely surprised to hear that young Tara’s turn resulted in a Razzie nomination. Flatly intoning her lines like a first-grader in French class, the Sharknado star proves singularly incapable of reacting to any of the events taking place around her.

Tara Reid trying to read her cue card

Whether she’s confronting life-threatening peril, learning the secrets of an ancient civilisation, or enjoying a bit of ‘how’s your father’ with Christian Slater, the blonde moppet maintains the same blank ‘where’s my cue card?’ expression throughout.

Elsewhere, Stephen Dorff (Blade, Immortals) gives a performance of workman-like competence. You get the sense that, among those used to grander roles, there was an on-set calculation that the sooner everyone did their job, the sooner everyone would be able to go home again and forget they ever appeared in this guff.

How bad is this?

Ah, we must all tread carefully here, friends. In the past, reviewing Uwe Boll’s work has proven to be dangerous business.

A few years ago, angered by so many negative reviews of his films, the prickly German challenged his worst critics to a boxing match, threatening them to either “put-up or shut-up”. (In a telling comment on the strength of their critical feeling, four journalists took up the challenge and fought the cranky kraut in a televised contest).

But even in the face of a pugilistic pummelling, this blog promises never to pull its critical punches. Exploding Helicopter will always give you a straight verdict straight (before quickly hiding behind a big lad and threatening to tell teacher).

Anyway, everything the critics say is true. The story really is a convoluted mess of impenetrable mumbo-jumbo. (Even Dan Brown - the patron saint of highfalutin nonsense – would be rolling his eyes at some of the unlikely japes on display here.)

The ‘special’ effects are anything but, and somehow worse than the graphics from the computer game which inspired the film. Many scenes are directed with staggering ineptitude (one supposed action scene sees Slater and Reid blaze away on machineguns at an enemy you never actually see).

Yet, for all those lamentable failings, Alone In The Dark just isn’t as bad as its reputation would have you believe. Exploding Helicopter has witnessed, and had the misfortune to review, far worse films. (Yes, we’re looking at you, Deadly Prey).

Never shy of self-publicity (self-released videos of the temperamental Teuton slagging off Michael Bay and Eli Roth went viral), Boll is really just a victim of his own inflated public profile. He may be the worst filmmaker you’ve heard of, but he’s not the worst filmmaker.

Hard though it may be to believe, many other film-makers are even worse – they’re just wise enough to stay in the shadows.

Exploding helicopter action

During the film’s climatic battle, Carnby and a team of soldiers have to fight a horde of otherworldly creatures. Luckily, a couple of helicopters are on hand to give aerial support to the embattled troops.

So that’s alright, then. But wait, what’s this? In an all too familiar mistake, the pilot - when will they ever learn? - flies too close to one of the supernatural animals. The beastie leaps into the air and grabs on to the tail of the chopper. The aircraft spins round clipping the second whirlybird, which then falls from the sky and explodes.

The first out-of-control whirlybird continues to spiral dangerously towards the ground. Finally, it crashes into the earth in front of the camera. But just before we get a chance to see a second explosion, the action cuts away.

Artistic merit

In a word, dismal. Boll completes fluffs the staging of this sequence, depriving us of the action we want to see.

In a directorial cheat, the helicopter that explodes drops out of the frame before a mushroom cloud of flame erupts back into shot.

It’s quite cool watching the second helicopter spin to its doom and crash right in front of the camera. It seemed a prime opportunity to deliver a close-up chopper fireball, but the special effects department must have considered if too much work. So in a huge anti-climax the action just cuts away. Outrageous.

Exploding helicopter innovation

That’s a negative.

Interesting fact

In 2015, Boll opened a restaurant in Canada called Bauhaus. The eatery has subsequently been awarded a Michelin star, making it the best reviewed project he’s ever been involved with.

Review by: Jafo

Active Stealth

It’s a film buff’s favourite game: name that Baldwin.

You get thrown the name of a film and then have to guess which of the brothers Alec, William, Daniel and junior frère Stephen, it features.

It’s simple to play, but devilishly hard to get right. Not least because apart from senior sibling Alec, the rest of the Baldwin clan are as indistinguishable as their work is unmemorable.

Still, fear not, for Exploding Helicopter has a secret formula to help you win this quiz every time.

Don’t believe us? Well, let’s play a round in this review and use it to find out which Baldwin is the star of Active Stealth.

The plot

A drug cartel in the invented Central American country of San Sedros (presumably close to such other fictional creations as Commando’s Val Verde or Delta Force 2’s San Carlos) is flooding America with cheap cocaine.

Officially, the United States is powerless to act. But the niceties of international law have long been an optional extra for Uncle Sam, so instead they cook-up an off-the-books ‘black op’ to put the drug lords out of business.

Using a new, highly sophisticated fighter plane that’s invisible to radar, an elite team of Army Rangers are sent in to shut-down the narcotics operation.

Following the immutable laws of the action movie, the plan quickly goes tits up. All of which (if we may temporarily be permitted to use the vernacular of rap music) leaves our heroes ‘fightin’ to preserve their health, stop the drug barons buildin’ wealth, an’ tryna escape using Active Stealth’. Word.

The cast

Of course, none of this tomfoolery answers the pressing question of the day: which Baldwin is the star of Active Stealth? Not quite sure? Don’t have a monkey’s idea? Let Exploding Helicopter help you.

Daniel Baldwin and Fred Williamson

Whenever you’re faced with such a sticky conundrum, just ask yourself the following questions:

Have I seen it, and was it any good?

If the answer is yes, it's Alec.

Have I seen it, and was it mostly terrible?

If the answer is yes, it's Billy.

Have I heard of it, not seen it, but instinctively know it's bad?

That would be Stephen.

Does this look like something that couldn't afford a Baldwin, but tried anyway?

That's Daniel. The notional ‘star’ of this risible, direct-to-DVD action flick.

It’s true. Unquestionably, Danny is the dullest constellation in the Baldwin firmament.

While Alec (when he’s not stropping-off at photographers, airline stewardesses or indeed his own daughter) can exude a charismatic authority; Billy a wonky seductiveness; and Stephen a roguish danger, the only quality Daniel brings to his roles is confusion as the poor viewer tries to remember which Baldwin he is.

(Note for Baldwin completists: The which-brother recognition task is made even harder by the existence of Adam Baldwin, who despite possessing the sort of instantly forgettable CV that is the hallmark of the family, is not actually a Baldwin brother).

In Active Stealth, Danny Boy is cast as the leader of an elite squad of Army rangers. But his performance is betrayed by a generous paunch that suggests his military training involves more time with the dessert course than the assault course.

Filling out the cast, former American footballer turned thespian Fred ‘the Hammer’ Williamson (Black Caesar, From Dusk Til Dawn) does a turn as Baldwin’s grizzled, cigar-chomping commander. And one-time wrestling champion Terry Funk appears as a villainous muscle-bound henchman.

Daniel Baldwin: "I don't know if I can do this anymore,
jumping out of helicopters for Uncle Sam."

While the name may not be recognisable, the permed mullet will be familiar to all fans of cult Eighties classic Road House, in which the spandex-clad warrior had a memorable showdown with Patrick Swayze.

Haven’t I seen this all before?

As the action unfolds, viewers of Active Stealth will be forgiven for experiencing a strong sense of déjà vu.

In part, that’s due to the utterly formulaic nature of the ‘men on a mission’ plot. But it will also be as a result of the fact many viewers will literally have already seen this film – or at least parts of it.

That’s because owing to its low budget status much of the action has been lifted from other movies. Shots of a stealth fighter plane are lifted from another, equally terrible, DVD actioner: Black Thunder. A helicopter attack towards the end is nicked from Eighties cop movie Bulletproof.

And that explosion of an all-important military base? Stolen from Harrison Ford thriller Clear And Present Danger. Or in this case: Clear And Present Duplication.

Exploding helicopter action

After completing their mission, our escaping heroes are pursued by some of the drug lord’s goons who are aboard a Mil Mi-24 type attack helicopter. Things look very bad for a moment – after all, the chopper is bristling with heavy duty weaponry.

But in much the same way that any respectable gun-toting baddie, faced with a prone hero defenceless on the floor before them, will always find an implausible reason to let them get up again and ultimately kick their face in, so too do the helicopter goons have a sudden lapse of judgement.

Despite being equipped with enough devastating weaponry to wipe out a small town, the henchmen instead opt to fire a pea shooter-looking machinegun from the open door on the fuselage.

Which handily gives one of Baldwin's commando hombres, a pint-sized Mexican sidekick, plenty of opportunity to whip out a rocket launcher and blast it at the whirlybird. The missile streaks towards the aircraft which, inevitably, erupts in a gloriously huge explosion.

Confusingly, our Hispanic friend then delivers the puzzlingly Italian flavoured pay-off line: “Arrivederci, you bastard!”

All of which makes about as much sense as giving a steroid-inflated Austrian a bit of Spanish doggerel as a catchphrase. Hasta la vista, indeed.

Artistic merit

There’s a juicy aerial fireball when the missile first hits the chopper, and we get a second detonation when the flaming fuselage crashes to the ground.

But even before all that, there’s a nice shot of the gun-toting henchman flinching as he watches the incoming rocket and realises his fate.

All-in-all, the above-par helicopter explosion is a lot better than the rest of this uninspired film.

Favourite line

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore, jumping out of helicopters for Uncle Sam.”

Interesting fact

Whilst Exploding Helicopter doesn’t want to trivialise drug addiction, we couldn’t help but be amused by this piece of trivia. In 1998, Daniel Baldwin was found running naked through the halls of New York's Plaza Hotel shouting "Baldwin!" and was arrested for possession of cocaine. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to three months in drug rehab.

Popular opinion holds that the 40-second CCTV clip of Danny flouncing down a hotel corridor, flaccid todger swinging, remains the most compelling work he’s committed to film. Like the Hoff’s sublime ‘eating burger off the floor while shit-faced’ clip, it suggests that some Hollywood D-listers can only truly ‘inhabit the character’ when their own character is inhabited by half a pound of coke and four bottles of hard liquor.

Review by: Jafo

The Towering Inferno

No film genre is more synonymous with the Seventies than the disaster movie. (Well, apart from hairy porn movies.)

Beginning with Airport’s aviation perils in 1970, the decade saw Hollywood gamely trying to wipe out great swathes of humanity on a regular basis. Barely a week went by without some grim-faced thesp having to face an earthquake, volcano, avalanche, capsizing cruise ship, meteor or even swarm of killer bees.

But while each terrifying threat may have been different (not to mention increasingly outlandish), the formula the films employed was uncannily similar.

It invariably involved pitting a couple of big name actors against an exaggerated catastrophe, while a cast of once-famous Tinsel town stars (whose dimmed lustre handily made them both affordable and expendable) tried to stay alive until the closing credits.

Looking back, it’s hard to understand audiences’ enthusiasm for seeing silver screen luminaries meet a grisly fate. But there is no better example of this curious phenomena than The Towering Inferno (1974), a film which sets out with the sole aim of serving up some prime chargrilled celebrity.

The plot

As the world’s tallest skyscraper is officially opened, a select group of distinguished guests enjoy a lavish party on the 83rd floor.

Unbeknown to them, cost-cutting and shoddy workmanship during the construction has turned the tower into a glorified death-trap. (Presumably, Donald Trump was involved in the process.) So when a fire breaks out, the guests find themselves stuck on the upper floors with little chance of escape.

Who will live and who will die? Or, in this case, fry.

The cast

The Towering Inferno features not one, but two of the era’s most notable leading men.

Twinkly-eyed charmer Paul Newman plays the architect of the sky-scraping death-trap, while moody scowler Steve McQueen plays the fireman leading the rescue operation.

McQueen and Newman: The Towering Egos

The pair’s flinty onscreen relationship (“You fighting me or the fire?” asks Newman at one point) powers much of the film. Intriguingly, it also mirrored what was happening off-screen.

Both men saw themselves as the film’s biggest star and demanded top billing on the film. It seemed as if there was no solution until producers hatched a cunning compromise.

Famously, McQueen’s and Newman’s names are arranged diagonally across the posters and opening credits.

It may have looked like a typesetting error, but it meant that both actors could claim their name appeared first - depending if you were reading from left-to-right, or from top-to-bottom. Phew!

Inevitably, the petty squabbling didn’t stop there. After counting his lines of dialogue, McQueen discovered that Newman had 15 more than him. This prompted the self-styled ‘King of Cool’ to insist that the screenwriter write half a page of new lines for him.

Never mind Infernos, this movie was more a case of The Towering Egos.

They were expendable

Of course, the true pleasure in these films is seeing which of the expensively assembled cast of stars will get to live and who will perish. (In this respect, the Seventies disaster genre foresaw the rise of countless ‘who’s-next-for-the-chop’ reality shows, such as Big Brother. The key difference is that audiences then didn’t have to suffer some Geordie berk saying: ‘Steeeeve’s gaun tae the diiiiia-ry roooooom’ every three minutes.)

But we digress. Back in 1974, an ageing William Holden, playing the shambolic tower block’s owner, seems a sure bet for some barbecue treatment. You can almost smell the mustard sauce on him. But despite being largely to blame for the disaster, he ultimately shows sufficient contrition to secure ‘humbled survivor’ status. Result.

Richard Chamberlain: Richard
by name, Dick by nature

No such luck for dastardly Richard Chamberlain. As the electrical engineer responsible for the dodgy wiring that actually caused the fire, you’d think he might show just a twinkle of remorse – but not a bit of it. Instead, Tricky Dicky spends most of the movie hurling out insults and getting increasingly shit-faced.

So when a rescue chair winch is set up and Chamberlain, in the process of forcibly skipping the queue, callously kicks several other guests to their death (including – gasp! – the Man From Uncle’s brylcreem smoothie, Robert Vaughan) you know the bells are tolling.

Sure enough, a fortuitously-timed ‘sudden’ explosion blasts out the winch, breaks the rope and sends dastardly Dicky plunging to his death.

And still the stars keep coming. Former Fifties heartthrob Robert Wagner turns up briefly as a sleazy PR man who’s having a secret affair with his secretary. After a sweaty tryst in his office, the pair find themselves trapped by the encroaching fire.

With a fiery doom fast approaching, Wagner makes a kamikaze dash for help. We later learn it was a forlorn effort when the remains of his charred watch are discovered. But the film never resolves the fate of his girlfriend.

Still it wouldn’t be the only time Wagner left a woman to die in mysterious circumstances. Just ask Natalie Wood.

Perhaps the most undignified death is saved for screen legend Jennifer Jones. An Oscar-winning star of the Forties and Fifties (Duel In The Sun, A Song For Bernadette), Jones was coaxed out of

retirement for the role of a wealthy widower who is being courted by a charming conman played by Fred Astaire.

But just as their delicately handled romance blossoms, our Jenny is unceremoniously bumped off. In an ineptly staged scene, with absolutely zero sense of occasion, she simply tumbles from a damaged elevator like a piece of luggage.

Worse, nobody shows the slightest reaction to this supposed tragedy. The impression given to the audience is that, in a movie stuffed with so many competing egos and such bloated self-regard, the bigger stars were unwilling to even ‘act’ upset for the cinematic demise of such a faded name.

Poor Jenny. It’s hard to think of a more inelegant or ungraceful way for an actor to exit a film, or indeed a career. Jones never acted again. And Exploding Helicopter doesn’t blame her.

Exploding helicopter action

After a credulity-stretching amount of time, someone finally (finally!) has the idea using a helicopter to evacuate the partygoers from tower’s roof.

But in keeping with the plot’s many anti-escape contrivances (blocked stairwells, faulty alarm systems) a high wind conspires to make the air rescue a dangerous endeavour.

Sure enough, as the first helicopter comes into land, a couple of over-keen party guests run straight out onto the landing pad – literally where the chopper’s about to land – for reasons that remain unclear to this day. The pilots try to avoid crushing the people below, but the aircraft is caught in a gust of wind and crashes into the roof, exploding instantly.

Burn baby, burn. It’s a chopper inferno.

Artistic merit

Not a lot of this scene makes sense. Where have these gale force winds suddenly sprung from? What made the chopper explode instantly like that? Why were the idiot guests throwing themselves on to the landing pad in the first place?

Don’t waste any precious brain cells trying to work this lot out. Clearly, the scene’s only purpose is to put the helipad out of commission for the rest of the film.

Still, the explosion does produce a nice, juicy, fuselage-consuming fireball. But one qualm: we only get to glimpse it briefly before the action moves back inside the building.

This is strange. Given that The Towering Inferno is a big budget blockbuster – almost exclusively dedicated to blowing stuff up and burning things – shouldn’t the producers want to dwell a bit on such a magnificent sight as a flaming chopper?

Generally, yes. But in this case, perhaps the director understood just how creaky and convoluted the circumstances of the helicopter’s destruction were – and opted to whizz through the scene before anyone had time to realize how bonkers it all was.

Exploding helicopter innovation

There’s nothing new in the manner or execution of this chopper fireball, but the location is fairly distinct. The only other film where Exploding Helicopter has seen a helicopter destroyed at the top of a tower block is Die Hard (1988).

Favourite line

After sniffing some smoke one hopelessly optimistic tower worker asks: “Did you leave a cigarette burning?”

Interesting fact

Desperate to capture a truly surprised reaction from the cast, Irwin Allen actually fired a handgun into the ceiling without warning the actors, who were understandably ‘surprised’. The trick worked and he got his shot.

Review by: Jafo

Epicenter

Ever felt like you’ve seen a film before?

Usually that nagging sense of déjà vu is just a trick of the imagination. A product of inspiration-lite directors regurgitating the ideas of other, invariably better, movies.

But when Exploding Helicopter watched Epicenter (2000) that feeling of familiarity was no mental illusion. Most viewers really had seen this film before.

That’s because Epicenter is a bona fide Franken-movie. No joking, folks. It genuinely has been made from large chunks of other movies, which have then been clumsily stitched together with a few original scenes.

And like the mad doctor’s ghastly creation it’s ugly to look at, lumbers along slowly, and deserves to be put out of its misery.

The plot

Nick Constantine is the disgruntled employee of a Los Angeles technology company. But rather than do what the rest of us would – ie. skive around on Facebook all day and loiter in the staff kitchen moaning about Barry from Accounts – he instead steals their plans for a top secret weapon.

We know: it sounds fool proof. But just as Nasty Nick is about to flog the blueprints to a group of shady mafia types, he’s arrested by a saucy undercover FBI agent. D’oh.

It looks like our boy is heading straight for the slammer until another entirely believable development occurs: a devastating earthquake suddenly strikes LA, destroying buildings and roads, and knocking out all communications.

With the city in chaos, the cop and the criminal somehow find themselves being hunted by illegal arms dealers and rogue CIA agents who all want the super-weapon’s specs.

So: a secret weapon, FBI, mafia, massive earthquake, rogue CIA agents and arms dealers – and all this happens within the first 20 minutes. In case you were wondering, this is not a Ken Loach movie.

Who’s in this?

Traci Lords: used to going down for her work

In the role of the heroic FBI agent we have the *ahem* legendary Traci Lords. Now the name may not be immediately familiar, but she was once the highest paid, most in-demand actress in the film business.

Or, to be more exact, the pornographic film business.

It’s true. In the mid-Eighties Madame Lords was the lonely man’s masturbatory fantasy of choice, starring in such seedily titled fare as New Wave Hookers, Black Throat and the pun-tastic Beverly Hills Copulator.

Unfortunately, the Princess of Porn’s reign ended in infamy when her real age was discovered. Turns out our Traci was barely 18, meaning her entire oeuvre had been made whilst she was a minor.

The ensuing scandal threw the adult entertainment industry into crisis and saw Lords herself arrested – although by this point in her career our Traci was probably used to going down for her work.

Her co-star is martial arts nearly-man Gary Daniels. He plays the criminal computer nerd Lords must bring to justice.

The Brit-born kickboxer was a B-movie action star during the Nineties. But unlike messrs Seagal and Van Damme, he never made the jump to top tier fare.

The problem was that Daniels could only really do one thing: beat people up. His thespian abilities were as wooden as the bokken sticks he routinely used to batter opponents.

Gary Daniels: transformed from action star to computer
geek simply by wearing glasses

And let’s face it: when someone’s watching Big Steve’s movies and thinking ‘I just wish I had such range…’, you know they’re in trouble.

All of which makes his casting here rather puzzling. Gazza’s role as a nerdy techno boffin almost by definition requires him to not crack any heads together, so we’re left watching the acting chops of a man who can only do karate chops. It’s like casting Timothy Spall as the lead in a martial arts cage-fighting movie. What on earth were they thinking?

And be warned: while his fellow actors were no doubt relieved to not be getting kung fu kicked in the gonads, for the audience this is still a very painful experience indeed.

Déjà vu

Let’s cut to the chase (or more accurately, cut to someone else’s chase): Epicenter lifts entire scenes from other movies.

Some examples: early in the film, there’s a sequence where a car chases an out of control trolley car. You might enjoy it if you hadn’t previously watched Eddie Murphy’s risible action comedy Metro (1997), where it first appeared. You can even see Murphy’s gurning face inside the vehicle.

Once the earthquake hits, destruction is wrought upon Los Angeles in spectacular big-budget style. Unfortunately, Epicenter’s budget barely stretched to Traci’s upholstered bras, so what you see are clips from other movies.

Those three characters trapped inside a damaged building, where the elevator fails and crashes? Hello, Speed (1994). That impressive subway crash? Hmmm, looks like Money Train (1995) Even the footage of the earthquake ripping buildings apart is nicked from The Big One: The Great Los Angeles Earthquake (1990) (TV Movie).

Ironically for a film about an earthquake, the shakiest aspect is the actual veracity of what you’re seeing.

Exploding helicopter action

But here’s a surprise! The exploding helicopter action appears to actually be an original sequence.

Pursued by corrupt government agents who are aboard a helicopter, Lords and Daniels take shelter inside a quake-damaged building. While the gunmen on the whirlybird try to shoot down the doughty FBI agent (who, in fairness, presents two almost unmissable targets), Daniels sneaks onto the roof of the building.

Grabbing a piece of broken masonry, Daniels hauls if over the side of the roof. The rubble plunges downwards into the rotor blades of the chopper. The damaged aircraft flies into the side of the building and then falls to the ground, where it explodes.

Artistic merit

In keeping with the film’s shoddy tone, this is a lamentable chopper fireball. The explosion looks unrealistic and the fuselage doesn’t disintegrate nearly enough to satisfy ardent chopper fireball fans.

Exploding helicopter innovation

However, there is a refreshing simplicity to this whirlybird conflagration. We’ve seen helicopters destroyed in all sorts of convoluted ways, but never by someone just dropping a bloody big rock on it.

It’s unsophisticated, but oddly satisfying.

Tagline

‘Las Vegas is about to become beach front property.’ Ho, ho.

Review by: Jafo

The Siege Of Firebase Gloria

“No dumb bastard ever won a war by dying for his country,” said the notoriously blunt General George S Patton. “He won by making some other dumb bastard die for his.”

If ever a war movie embodied this famous remark, it’s The Siege Of Firebase Gloria (1989). During 99 blood-soaked minutes, we follow a small group of soldiers as they shoot, stab, garrotte and strangle a seemingly inexhaustible supply of enemy extras.

There are no stirring heroics. No rousing patriotic speeches. And certainly no examination of the conflict’s causes or consequences. Just the cold, efficient butchery skills of men killing other men. Watching it, General Patton would’ve been wiping a sentimental tear from his eye.

The plot

It’s the Vietnam War. Inevitably, a small patrol of marines are trapped behind enemy lines as the Vietcong launch a major offensive. So far, so Platoon, you might think. But if it’s jingoistic clichés and slo-mo heroics you’re after, look elsewhere. This movie ends up looking more like a military snuff tape.

The story is simplicity itself. With no other route of escape, the soldiers have to make for a remote, undermanned, and largely undefended Army outpost called Gloria.

The base is quickly surrounded by ‘Charlie’. Hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, our heroic ‘band of brothers’ resolve to fight a desperate battle to the death. And that’s it, really. It’s not called The Siege Of Firebase Gloria for nothing.

Who’s in this?

Wings Hauser and R Lee Ermey

As veterans of the Vietnam War movie genre will know, marines in these films always have to be commanded by a tough-as-nails, take-no-shit, sergeant. (Think Sean Penn in Casualties of War or Tom Berenger in the aforementioned Platoon).

And in this hallowed gang of men, no actor has shown more nail-hardiness – nor more firmly refused ordure of any kind– than that grizzled, mean, king of ornery: R Lee Ermey. (Of course, it helps that Ermey actually was a bona fide sergeant back in ‘nam – he served in ‘the Corp’ for 11 years – before finding fame with a film-stealing turn in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket.)

And that’s the difference, really. Good as Sean Penn was in Casualties of War, you know that between scenes he was probably sat in a penthouse trailer holding conference calls about endangered pandas with the Dalai Lama and Bono, or screaming for an espresso with the sugar stirred anti-clockwise NOW!

But when Ermey delivered his memorably foul-mouthed turn as drill instructor Sergeant Hartman in Kubrick’s Eighties classic, he wasn’t even really acting. He merely reprised the parade ground bollockings he’d dished out to thousands of raw recruits. (Trivia fact: Ermey actually wrote or improvised his own dialogue in the film).

Since then old R. Lee has, with military discipline, reprised his trademark boggle-eyed shouting and swearing shtick in more than 100 films (much like Al Pacino, only without the Oscars and critical plaudits). And true to form, in Firebase Gloria the perma-enraged sergeant regularly unleashes an ungodly amount of guttural insults at decibel-shattering volume.

But it gets even better. Also in the cast is Wings Hauser, the cult star of such straight-to-video classics as The Art Of Dying, Reason To Die and L.A Bounty, as Ermey’s gung-ho – and ever so slightly unhinged – second in command.

Throughout the film, Wings displays a worrying enthusiasm for machine-gunning ‘dinks’ (as they’re charmingly referred to) at every opportunity. It’s meant to portray patriotic fervour, but more readily suggests an urgent need for psychiatric care.

Cometh the hour, cometh R Lee Ermey

With thousands of kill-crazy gooks launching relentless assaults, the situation for Ermey and his dwindling group of troops couldn’t be grimmer. Morale and ammunition are in equally short supply.

Recognising this moment of crisis, Ermey realises that a rousing pep talk is needed. An inspirational cri de Coeur that will stiffen the resolve of his wavering men. Perhaps something akin to the stirring poetry of the ‘Once more unto the breach’ speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V.

Or of course, he could just scream and bawl about how shit they all are while holding on to the severed heads of two of their fallen comrades, dangling from his fingers like some ghastly giant’s testicles.

“Anyone know who these belong to?” asks the puce-faced sergeant, swinging the freshly hewn noggins of the two now very much ex-marines.

“This is Corporal Miller,” he continues. “He’s dead. I don’t have any respect for Corporal Miller anymore, because he allowed his troops to relax. They let their guard down for five fucking minutes, and Charlie took advantage. Look at ‘em, goddamnit. Stay alert, stay alive. It’s as simple as that.”

Now, Exploding Helicopter is no expert on such matters but it’s a fair guess the above probably wasn’t delivered in iambic pentameter. But then again, when did Shakespeare’s plays ever serve up a flame-challenged whirlybird? Speaking of which…

Exploding helicopter action

So, the exploding helicopter. Early in the film, the good sergeant’s squad are being flown in a chopper towards the Gloria firebase. As they approach to land, they come under machinegun fire from hidden VC soldiers. The pilot is killed forcing Ermey, ever the take-charge guy, to land the damaged whirlybird.

The prospect of imminent chopper conflagration satisfaction is signalled when someone yells: “I can smell fuel.” Everyone is ordered out, and as they jump clear the helicopter explodes. Kaboom.

Artistic merit

This is a glorious helicopter explosion. It doesn’t look like any expense was spared on the pyrotechnics. The fireball is truly huge and features the kind of rich, orangey hues that only come from burning a considerable amount of gasoline.

Clearly impressed by his own special effect, the director treats us to multiple replays of the explosion. It’s a fireball feast for the eyes.

Favourite line

R Lee Ermey obviously gets the choicest bits of dialogue in this movie, and gets to deliver this particular gem in his own inimitable way: “It’s time to sprinkle some shit on Charlie’s rice.”

Review by: Jafo

Big Ass Spider

Big Ass Spider is the moving tale of a young Yiddish girl struggling with her own sexual awakening in a nineteenth century Polish village beset by stringent gender codes.

Okay, no it’s not. It’s a big dollop of crass, in-yer-face, made-for-cable, creature-feature mayhem. A film in which a vaguely convincing CGI spider performs all kinds of merry anarchy, while indulging every monster movie cliché on the list.

Our heroes, it turns out, are a cross-cultural comedy pairing. The film takes place, inevitably, in downtown Los Angeles. There’s even a King Kong-lite showdown atop a tower. And before you ask, yes, there is a scene where lots of pneumatic bikini-clad women run (and bounce) away in terror from the angry arachnid.

Exploding Helicopter won’t spend too much time explaining what happens in Big Ass Spider (2013). Anyone who has already seen one of the plethora of giant-sized creature movies (where, as a rule, the only small components are the budget and the leading men’s resumes) will already know what kind of intellectual territory we’re in.

So, the only sensible questions to ask are: can Big Ass Spider spin a diverting yarn? Will you be caught up in a densely woven web of thrills? And does the story have enough legs?

The plot

Near-future Earth has been hit by a global food crisis. We’re all doomed! Faced with global catastrophe, scientists attempt to solve the extinction-level threat by combining a sample of extra-terrestrial DNA with…a tomato. I’m sorry: a what with a what?

(Presumably, the scriptwriter was on the wacky baccy while writing this particular scene. Or he had guessed, correctly, that the demographic audience for his film wouldn’t be paying a blind bit of notice until the big, hairy spider came along.)

As it turns out, the boffins’ grand plans to create a super-salad go disastrously wrong when a spider is accidentally caught up in the experiment.

Infused with Martian genetic code, the eight-legged mutant quickly grows to a prodigious size and begins a homicidal rampage across Los Angeles.

With the web-weaving menace running amok, the fate of the city falls to two unlikely heroes: a jovial pest-exterminator and a wise-cracking hospital security guard. Their mission, as one of them pithily summarises, is to: “Stop the spider, save the city, kiss the girl.”

It’s almost as if he’s seen one of these movies before…

Who’s in this?

Greg Grunberg or a fat Ben Affleck. We're not sure.

Greg Grunberg, who looks very much like Ben Affleck’s tubby older brother – a Fat Man to his Batman, if you like – plays the bug killer ‘ordinaire’. You'll probably remember Big Greg best from his role as the powerful telepath in Heroes, where he used his mental powers to solve murders and order free burgers (or something).

A specialist in lovable everyman characters, Grunberg is perfectly cast as the ordinary Joe who unexpectedly finds his inner Superman when confronted with the big bug crisis.

He’s thrown together with Lombardo Boyar’s fast-talking Mexican security guard. With his goofy antics and an accent as broad as a burrito, Boyar veers dangerously close to racist cliché: a sort of Hispanic Jar-Jar Binks in human form.

This not-so-dynamic duo sounds as good an idea as, well, melding tomatoes with E.T. But, in the finest traditions of odd couple movies (see just about any Eighties buddy cop movie), their friction-filled relationship proves to be the film’s most entertaining aspect.

Adding a much needed touch of class to proceedings is stern-faced character actor Ray Wise (Robocop, Twin Peaks). A specialist in authoritarian roles, he’s spent the last thirty years profitably playing Sheriffs, Senators and other representatives of officialdom whilst scarcely ageing a day.

Not-so-dynamic duo Lombardo Boyar and Greg Grunberg

Unfailingly perma-tanned and with a spookily unchanging hairstyle (only Robert Redford possesses a similarly time-resistant barnet) our Ray could still pass for late forties despite the fact he’s now pushing 70.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for the Sundance Kid, whose face these days seems to be crumpling like a decaying peach. (Which reminds Exploding Helicopter of David Hockney’s priceless observation while painting the wrinkly poet, W.H. Auden: ‘I just kept thinking: if that’s his face, what must his balls look like?’)

Is this any good?

Despite the predictable plot, shaky special effects, and some decidedly questionable science, Big Ass Spider is a thoroughly likeable piece of hokum.

That’s because, like other notable monster successes such as Eight-Legged Freaks and Slither, this film knows that it’s meant to be good fun. And for the most part, it really is a hoot. There’s genuine wit in Grunberg and Boyar’s good-natured bickering, while the grisly deaths are entertainingly engineered. And overall, the genre tropes are embraced with a deft blend of humour and homage. Which is by no means as easy as it looks – just ask Snakes on a Plane.

Sure, you can pick Big Ass Spider apart. But that would make you rather like a mean-spirited kid pulling the legs off a helpless insect. This whimsical yarn isn’t doing any harm, so why be cruel? It’s only meant to be a piece of trashy fun. The best bet is to just sit back and enjoy it.

Exploding helicopter action

Don't fly too close to the.....oh too late

In a teaser for the climactic scene, the film opens with the giant arachnid atop a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles as heavily-armed Army helicopters hover nearby.

The choppers should be in no danger. But as Exploding Helicopter has observed many times before, cinematic pilots have a curious inability to remain at a safe distance from a clearly observable threat.

Within seconds, one of the Apache-style helicopters inexplicably flies within swatting distance of the giant spider. The irritated insect smacks the aircraft with one its hairy legs, sending the whirlybird crashing into the building where it promptly explodes.

Spider: 1. Helicopters: 0.

Artistic merit

The helicopter and its explosion are rendered in fairly decent CGI. The scene is shot from below, which allows the flaming wreckage to fall towards the camera – always a nice touch.

Exploding helicopter innovation

This blog has seen helicopters destroyed by all sorts of weird and not-so-wonderful creatures – piranhas, crocodiles, bees and even, most bizarrely, flamingos. But this is the first recorded example of a helicopter being destroyed by a spider – mutant or otherwise.

Favourite line

Fittingly, given the title of the film, the titular arachnid is ultimately destroyed by our heroes firing a bazooka up its backside.

This allows for the apt payoff line: “Up yours.”

Trivia fact

The movie's DVD cover blurb – which describes an annoying little insect bloated to massive proportions by unlikely circumstances, then raging havoc across the USA – led some to initially assume it was a Donald Trump biopic. No, it didn’t. But would anything surprise you about America at the moment?

Tagline

Ten stories high and very hungry.

Review by: Jafo

Absolute Zero

Rarely has the name of a film summed up the entertainment level of its own content.

Yup. In an unusually honest move, the producers of Absolute Zero (2005) come straight out and tell the viewer everything they need to know about their prospects of being even mildly diverted while sitting through this made-for-cable disaster movie.

Excitement? Drama? Intrigue? Staying awake even, during this derivative piece of tosh? Absolute Zero chance. Handily, the title also proves an uncanny barometer of the film’s rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned.

The plot

The Earth’s magnetic poles - those pesky things again! are about to suddenly switch and plunge half the world into an ice age. (Note: Aficionados of this genre will be well aware that, in disaster movies, the magnetic poles, critical to continued life on Earth, are as dependable as a second-hand Amstrad computer).

Realising that chilly catastrophe is imminent, one lone scientist (Jeff Fahey) desperately tries to alert the world. But unfortunately the authorities do not believe his doomsday prophecies.

Can our heroic boffin change their stubborn minds? Are millions of innocent people fated to perish? Is the world going to survive this looming icy disaster? Will all of the above be of absolute zero interest to the viewer? (In all probability, yes. But let's bang on regardless).

Who’s in this?

An early warning of the film’s less than august quality is the presence of Jeff Fahey. He plays Dr Kotzman, a climatologist who must warn the world that it is imperilled.

Once an actor found in decent-ish films (Silverado, The Lawnmower Man, Wyatt Earp), Fahey now works almost exclusively in the DTV and made-for-cable world. He's the guy you call when even Eric Roberts decides a script doesn't quite meet his own quality threshold. Things are that bad.

Jeff Fahey: the best thing in a bad movie

But in fairness to our Jeff, while he has become synonymous with awful movies, he is usually the best thing in them. And to his credit he does another good job here. As Christopher Lee once observed, the trick to surviving a terrible film is never to be terrible in them.

Fahey’s co-star is former Baywatch babe and Penthouse playmate, Erika Eleniak although watchers may struggle to recognise the buxom blonde with her clothes on. And that's understandable.

After all, during her Baywatch heyday, the Eleniak nellies took on much of the acting burden. Their sheer range - up and down, side to side, bursting through wet bathing suits - was phenomenal. If only she had been able to to string whole sentences together, the sky would have been the limit.

Sadly, for Exploding Helicopter there was no repeat of her cake-bursting cameo in Under Siege.

Just how cheap is this?

The film’s penury is ably demonstrated in an early scene which purports to take place in the Arctic. Location filming was clearly beyond the film’s budget. So how did the cash-strapped director create a convincing frozen wasteland?

The answer owes something to the Blue Peter school of improvisation (in which, the philosophy held, there was nothing that couldn't be constructed out of old toilet rolls and sticky back plastic). The cold Arctic tundra is magically achieved by projecting an unconvincing wintery vista on the studio wall while instant 'snow' is created by emptying the contents of a paper shredder on the floor. At least the awful script eventually proved useful.

Exploding helicopter action

Erika Eleniak: sadly no repeat of
her Under Siege 'entrance'

After a gruelling 80 minutes Exploding Helicopter finally arrived at a scene which managed to command our interest: the chopper fireball.

Our heroes are holed up in a laboratory complex to avoid the plummeting temperature. A helicopter flies in to collect the embattled survivors from the roof. But as it comes in to land, the whirlybird is buffeted by icy winds and sent crashing into the top of the office block.

Artistic merit

Exploding Helicopter is going to be blunt: this was an awful chopper fireball. The scene is shot from street-level, so the sight of the chopper’s crash is obscured by the camera angle. We don’t get to see it impact on the roof or any wreckage. All we see is a brief fireball illuminate the top of the building.

You only need two ingredients for a successful helicopter explosion: a helicopter and an explosion. Absolute Zero gives us neither. Outrageous.

Exploding helicopter innovation

You remember what we said about the title of this film describing everything in it?

Favourite line

Jeff Fahey is given a handy catchphrase to shut-down any questions about the pseudo-scientific guff he spouts throughout the film. Whenever anyone doubts the logic of what the good Doctor says his reply is majestic: “Science,” he tells us, “is never wrong.”

Review by: Jafo

Listen to the Exploding Helicopter podcast episode on Absolute Zero on iTunes, Podomatic, Stitcher or YourListen.

Lockout

“Based on an original idea by Luc Besson,” boasts the credit at the start of Lockout.

But as it turns out, the wily Froggie's only truly creative contribution to the film is the above bold (and utterly bollocks) statement.

That’s because the garlic scented filmmaker’s 'ideas' actually originated from Eighties cult classic Escape From New York. That at least was the view of a court judge after the film's director John Carpenter successfully sued for copyright infringement.

And while Besson may feel hard done by with his 80,000 Euro fine it could’ve been worse. Just imagine if he'd been caught nicking ideas from the risible and totally unnecessary sequel, Escape From LA.

The plot

As may now be clear, Lockout (2012) bares more than a passing resemblance to Carpenter’s futuristic prison movie.

Kurt Russell Guy Pearce plays a sardonic anti-hero on the wrong side of the law. Sentenced to prison, he’s offered a chance of freedom if he rescues the President President’s daughter who’s fallen into the clutches of prisoners incarcerated in a futuristic jail in New York Space. Alongside this mission, our hero must retrieve a cassette tape suitcase containing vital information.

As you can see, this probably wasn't a particularly tough day at the office for that copyright judge. The scale of rip-offery going on here would even make a cinematic magpie like Quentin Tarantino blush.

No wonder Carpenter sued. This after all is a man who’s made such burningly original works as the definitely-not-based-on-another-film The Thing and the couldn’t-be-more-different-to-Rio-Bravo Assault On Precinct 13. Did someone say, 'pot kettle and black'?

Who’s in this?

In an unlikely piece of casting, ex-Neighbours 'big gallah' Guy Pearce plays Snow - the insubordinate CIA agent tasked with rescuing the prezzer’s progeny. With his gaunt face and collar bones you could hook a coat hanger on, the skinny Aussie normally cuts an unintimidating, wraith-like presence in his films.

Pearce: a sort of thinkng man's Jason Statham

But no doubt aware of potential embarrassment, the Aussie thesp has clearly been chugging the protein shakes and punishing his twiglet-like limbs in the gym for this role. For in Lockout he’s sporting the sort of buff bod you'd spot down Bondi Beach. Exploding Helicopter certainly wouldn't dare kick sand in his face.

It's the most compelling weed-to-muscles transformation since Adrien Brody, a man who reportedly had to gain weight to play a Holocaust prisoner of war in The Piano, turned up buffed to the max (though still with a weirdly skinny face) in Predators.

As the imperilled first daughter we have Maggie Grace, an actress who seems to be making an entire career out of being held hostage (see Taken 1, 2 and 3).

And bizarrely for a film about a futuristic American prison, the prisoner’s revolt is led by two thickly-accented Scottish hooligans (Joseph Gilgun and the ‘actually not Scottish’ Vincent Regan).

It continues a curious Hollywood obsession with populating sci-fi films with actors sporting British regional accents. (One only needs to see how often Sean Bean is cast in such fare for proof: Jupiter Ascending, The Island, The Martian, Equilibrium, et al). As Ridley Scott almost put it: 'In Sheffield, no-one can hear you scream, that's a terrible accent.'

For the makers of Lockout it seems nothing can quite convey the horror of a dystopian post-industrial hell more than a Gorbals accent. Presumably they’ve been to Glasgow.

Is this any good?

In space no-one can hear..... anything other than
regional British accents

Despite the onslaught of cliches and familiarity of its plot, Lockout nonetheless a ruthlessly efficient piece of action-adventure. The whole thing rattles along at a commendable clip, Pearce amusingly quips his way through a series of bone-crunching fist fights, and the credits roll after an economic, but entertaining 90 minutes.

None of which should really be a surprise. After all, Lockout is another film from Luc Besson’s Europacorp production line. For over a decade his company have specialised in knocking-out generic, action floss with just enough of a stylish gloss to elevate them above the DTV fare they so closely resemble.

In many ways, with their commitment to producing superior but undemanding genre fare, Europacorp are the natural heirs to Cannon who patented this approach back in the Eighties.

Exploding Helicopter action

In a film crammed with familiar action tropes Exploding Helicopter was delighted to see that the director did the decent thing and squeezed in an exploding helicopter. This occurs early in the film before the action moves into space.

Pearce finds himself pursued by police after a clandestine deal he’s involved in turns sour. Making his escape on a motorbike, he’s chased by a futuristic-looking helicopter.

Our hero roars down a motorway, weaving in-and-out of traffic. Foolishly, the chopper tries to follow at low altitude. With pleasing inevitability the whirlybird clips some electricity cables which are stretched across the street.

The helicopter spins out of control and crashes into the tarmac, cartwheeling across the ground as it bursts into flame. Kaboom!

Artistic merit

It’s not bad, but it’s not exactly good either. The whole pursuit sequence is rendered in low-quality CGI making it look more like something from a computer game than a feature film.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Little to report. We’ve seen power lines and cables bring down choppers many times before, for example in The Dark Knight.

Favourite line

“Here’s an apple and here’s a gun. Oh and don’t talk to strangers.” Guy Pearce offers Maggie Grace tips on staying alive.

Tagline

Take no prisoners.

Review by: Jafo