Van Helsing (2004)

Overall Rating:
VH gets a very low rating as a bad action movie, and a very low rating as a movie in general. About the only thing good this movie had going for it was the nonsensical plot. Watch VH only if you want to see a fairly-new bad action movie AND Commando is out of stock!

Why We Rented It:
Legendary monster hunter Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) is summoned to mysterious Transylvania on a mission that will thrust him into a sweeping battle against the forces of darkness! With non-stop action and electrifying special effects, VAN HELSING is an adrenaline-powered motion picture event Roger Ebert calls “Spectacular!”

Our Synopsis:
What first appeared to be a fantasy James Bond rip-off quickly turned into an Underworld rip-off, a very poor Underworld rip-off. Basically, our hero Van Helsing must kill Dracula so that some girl’s family can become un-damned. Isn’t that great? There’s also a little sub-story about Van Helsing wondering about his past, but I still don’t really get that one so it must not really be that important.

• Big Ol’ Naked Boobies:

No boobies. Enough said.

• Profanation:

According to my wonderful source of Family Media Guide.com, there are only d*mn’s and he**’s in this movie. That’s kid’s stuff, might as well rate the movie PG with that.

• Ninjocity:

Ninjocity was sparse and poorly executed. Of course there is a little hand-to-hand combat between Huge Jackman and Dracula during the end-boss fight, but it kind of degrades and eventually turns into something I wouldn’t even call fighting. There really isn’t much ninjocity to speak of.

• Cannonry:

This was reasonable. As you can see by the cover, Huge Jackman got himself a crossbow that seems to have a near limitless supply of arrows (which he uses when trying to shoot vampires). I liked the realism in this movie in that Huge Jackman could not hit the broad side of a barn with his crossbow. Good touch! Some stuff explodes too. I believe I recall a windmill and a stagecoach exploding, among other things. Some vampire bats kind of explode too.

• Other Factors:

I was unimpressed by the amount of special effects used to try to produce a decent movie. At some points you can definitely wonder if the entire scene hasn’t just been animated. That is not what bad action movies are all about! I would’ve made a “bad action anime” site if that’s what I wanted to see.

It’s kind of sad when you can compare what should be a good bad action movie to the Brothers Grimm, but you can definitely make that comparison here. VH has slightly more action, but I would say the Brothers Grimm had a better plot and was better produced. Sad indeed.

Overall Plot Line:
I’d firstly like to mention how much I enjoyed the fact that VH worked for the Catholic Church. The questions what and why immediately come to mind, but I find asking too many questions just leaves you with a hurting head and no real answers, so questions begone!

It was also interesting that the movie decided to tie in all sorts of monsters, I guess to give off the effect that VH was a great monster hunter. Actually though, the proof that he’s a great monster hunter (at least to the viewing audience) is only that he killed one monster. Don’t you need to kill at least two to get some monster-killing cred? Apparently not.

Unfortunately, I gotta pull out the spoiler bar and talk about stuff that might ruin the movie for you if you haven’t already witnessed its badness. Sorry, but these are crucial and confusing parts that I would like to discuss with those who have seen it. And if you just don’t care about the spoilers, feel free to read on:

*****************************SPOILER ALERT!*************************************

Ok, first of all, as mentioned in Ninjocity, when an end boss fight degrades down to two monsters fighting each other, well you can’t even really call that an end boss fight. Characters aren’t even really fighting anymore. It’s lame, no one wants to see that. It’s like the end of Mortal Kombat 2; lame!

Absolute favorite part of the plot: the ancestor of the very hot Kate Beckinsale who basically dooms his descendant by making a vow to not let any of those said descendants get into heaven before Dracula is killed. What a dick! Talk about dooming those who haven’t even been born yet! Doom yourself stupid, don’t drag your whole family down with you!

Most confusing part of the plot: someone explain this to me because I still don’t get it: how does Kate Beckinsale die at the end? What kills her? All that happened was that she got tackled across the room be the werewolf-Huge Jackman (who she promptly stabbed with the needle), and then all of a sudden she’s dead. No visible marks, no impaling, nothing. Explanations?

It’s also interesting to wonder why it is that, if the only thing that can defeat Dracula is a werewolf, why doesn’t he just rid the world of all werewolves and become invincible for all time? The wonders never cease.

*****************************END SPOILERS*************************************

Other items this film contains:

-A vampire breakin’ all da rulez! (i.e. the stake thing, the holy water thing, etc.)

-Bad accents all over the place

Commando (1985)

Overall Rating:
This is the closest film to receiving the coveted perfect rating yet. Only naked boobies were lacking. Definitely a top-tier bad action movie, one of the best ever made.

Why We Rented It:
In this early action classic that features his unique blend of thrills and offbeat humor, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as retired Colonel John Matrix. The ex-head of a special commando strike team, he’s forced back into action when his daughter (Alyssa Milano) is kidnapped. With the help of a feisty stewardess (Rae Dawn Chong), Matrix has only a few hours to overcome his greatest challenge: finding his daughter before she gets killed.

Our Synopsis:
The movie starts with some guys dying for no apparent reason. Then, Arnold’s old army boss comes to visit him in the mountains and tells him some of his old war buddies are getting killed. Some evil dudes raid Arnold’s house and kidnap his daughter and try to force him to kill the president of some country that’s most likely south of the U.S. Then Arnold does his Arnold-thing and, well, I’ll let you figure out the ending.

• Big Ol’ Naked Boobies:

There actually are some naked boobies in this movie, however about the only way you are going to see them is by pausing the movie and going frame-by-frame. Not that we did that…anyway, they at least made an attempt at boobies, which is more than I can say for some other movies *cough* Rapid Exchange *cough*.

• Profanation:

Commando doesn’t even bother messing around with any little-girl swears. Right from the beginning it’s f*c* this and mother fu**er. However, as anyone knows, they can’t keep up this torrid pace all movie long, and eventually it mellows down to the lighter swears, like chic*en-sh*t. Still the quick start left a lasting impression; lasting enough for that elusive perfect score.

• Ninjocity:

I thought that this movie had a very excellent progression in the action department. It started out with a lot of explosions, then settled into some nice hand-to-hand fighting, and finished with some very large and excellent explosions. The middle section of fighting was quite good, and it included Arnold fighting some guy and going through a wall. Through a wall!!! Arnold also gets to snap some guys neck and have a knife fight to the death! A knife fight to the death, are you kidding me?!? How awesome is that!? Well, to answer my own question, very awesome. 5 stars.

• Cannonry:

Easily 5 stars. If I could give it 6 or 7 stars I would, the cannonry is that abundant. Don’t Believe me? Just flip that movie box over and what do you see? That’s right, you see Arnold with a quadruple-rocket launcher ready to fire. That should tell you about all you need to know. It’s not all explosions either. There are many scenes at the end of the movie where Arnold stands in an out-in-the-open place and mows down about a million Latin Americans.

• Other Factors:

As far as other factors go, Arnold’s daughter’s name is Jenny. Jenny. Imagine Arnold yelling, “Jenn-nie!!!!” I think you get the picture. Hilarity ensues.

Also, there was a great scene in which Arnold throws a pipe through a dude’s chest and, somehow, steam comes shooting out of the end of the pipe facing the camera. How? Who knows, I’ve got to assume that that guy was made of steam, and that pipe just released it. Then Arnold makes some great pun about “letting off some steam” or something like that. All I can say is, High Quality.

This movie also gains by having a little unpredictability in the ending. When you start watching Arnold and Bennett fighting at the end, try to guess how Arnold is going to get him. Try it. I’ll bet you $20 you don’t get it right. It seems so obvious, but then they surprise you by not doing what you expect. Definitely more than I expected from Commando.

Overall Plot Line:
Umm, biggest question has got to be: where the hell does this movie take place? I know that the evil enemy boss guy mumbles it a couple of times, but I honestly had no idea what he was saying most of the time.

The main bad guy was great; I believe Bennett was his name. Man, that was the gayest biker-dude I’ve ever seen. And this movie was probably even made before the whole slave/biker-motif became popular, so I’m assuming that Bennett is solely responsible for the creation of this fad. Thank you Bennett.

If you don’t love these old Arnold movies, you just don’t love bad action movies. This is a classic example. The plot is fairly predictable, but they still throw in some things to surprise you. It even does alright for character development. It plays the basic human emotion card; Jenny is Arnold’s daughter so he wants to get her back, Bennett is basically just an evil dude that wants to kill Arnold. Basic, nothing fancy, but it involves you in the movie.

Other items this film contains:

-Arnold throwing a phone booth

-Arnold driving a truck with no engine (How the hell did they take the engine?!?)

Liked Commando? Check out Commando Fans.com

Death Race 2000 (1975)

Overall Rating:
This movie received good marks in all categories. There wasn’t quite enough ninjocity to give it a perfect score, but there was quite a bit of gratuitous nudity and the plot line was terrible. All in all, a fairly good bad action movie.

Why We Rented It:
In the year 2000, hit & run has become the national sport. It’s a no-hold barred cross-country race, in which the aim is to kill off not only your opponents, but as many pedestrians as possible. David Carradine takes on Sylvester Stallone in this classic adrenaline thriller that will make you look both ways twice before you cross.

Our Synopsis:
If we ever gave out awards for, say, the movie with the worst character names, DR2000 would win the award unanimously. Just to give you a taste, how do Mr. Frankenstein, Machine-Gun Joe and Mr. President sound to you? Ya, that’s what I thought.

Alright, on to the basics of the movie, so it turns out that sometime in the future (oh wait, the year 2000!) it’s decided to have a transcontinental road-race in which racers drive from the east coast to the west coast and try to hit pedestrians along the way for points. Stop me if I’m going too fast. The story revolves around one racer, the very popular Mr. Frankenstein, whose reasons for wanting to win the race are varied. Of course they’ve also got to throw something of a love story in there, (because who isn’t turned on by running people over?) and naturally, classic Highlander rules^ apply to the ending.

^ = see FAQ #4 for further explanation

• Big Ol’ Naked Boobies:

After being shutout in the boobie department for the last little while, redemption finally shows itself in the form of DR2000! Most of them were good old fashioned pointless nudity scenes at that. Early on, when all the cars make their pit-stop for the night, all the racers get massages completely in the nude. And just to prove to everyone that they are in the nude, two female characters decide to get in a fight where their towels fall off. Ooops! However, there were still some scenes in which the nudity had a point. Later on, the main female character decides that she’s going to sex-up Mr. Frankenstein every night, so she strips down to the buff and has at him a couple times.

• Profanation:

DR2000 had some pretty good swearing, mostly by Stallone (or should I say Machine-Gun Joe!), but other characters also got in on the fun. There were quite a few combo swears put into play such as bull-sh**, g*d-d**n, and sons-of-bit**es. And, as all of you should know by now, the TBAFS crew loves the combo swears! The profanation score also goes up due to one of the female character being referred to as a “sexpot,” and as a result of one of the strangest insults in recorded history. Good ol’ MGJ utters the soon-to-be classic remark: “You know Myra, some people might think you're cute. But me, I think you're one very large baked potato.”

• Ninjocity:

You would think that our rating for ninjocity would be much lower since there was basically only one fight scene in the movie. However, when a movie goes above and beyond the call of making a really bad fight scene, we reward said movie with a higher score. This is the case with DR2000. Not only is the fight absolutely terrible (to the point where I think both actors could pull off the same fight scene at their present ages), but the DR2000 staff goes all out with bad sound effects and music. The punch sound-effects are way off; either the sound would come ½ a second after the punch was thrown or there would be no sound effect for the punch at all. And the music! Oh the music! That’s really what threw me the farthest off about the whole scene. It was definitely a bad fight scene with the fighting and the mistimed sound-effects, but when you add the music to that you start to become confused about what exactly it is you are watching. I started looking around my house to find where that strange melody was coming from. I thought for sure that my neighbors just had their bad music turned up too loud again. No people, it’s coming from the movie.

• Cannonry:

Cannonry was quite excellent in DR2000. Early in the movie, Machine-Gun Joe fires, what else, a machine-gun into the on-lookers in the grandstand. A racecar blows-up on a landmine, while another racecar is driven off a cliff and explodes. An airplane and two guys try to blow up a car by shooting at it and setting off mines buried in the ground. Another car is blown up with a hand grenade.

• Other Factors:

If you’re looking for a short movie to get into the genre, then look no further. For those who do not wish to spend 2+ hrs watching a bad action movie, Death Race 2000 is for you! DR2000 clocks in at an amazing 78 minutes! That’s not even an hour and twenty minutes for those keeping track at home.

Also, it’s almost compulsory to rent a movie that takes place in the “future” when the year of the “future” is currently a year in the past.

For those who love Howard Cosell and Howard Cosell impersonators, this movie will be great for you! The part of one of the announcers seemed like it was written with only Howard Cosell in mind. It’s very painful to watch, and as soon as you recognize that that’s what that announcer is doing, it becomes incredibly annoying.

Overall Plot Line:
This plot line is very terrible, and in multiple ways. It’s bad in the true bad action movie way, by having a plot that doesn’t entirely make sense. But it’s also bad in the sense of how horrible the idea of running over people for fun is. This movie can be pretty entertaining as long as you don’t try to take it seriously…at all. If you do, you probably won’t be watching very much of it.

Of course one of the most interesting aspects of DR2000 is that the reason for the Death Race is never explained. Sure, we now live in the United Provinces of America and we all love Mr. President, but why do we have a Death Race every year? And why is it the national sport?

I have trouble giving DR2000 5 stars for plot line due to the complete lack of character development. I know that some of you must be very confused that a bad action movie loses points due to no character development, but there is a method to the madness. Most bad action movies at least try to get you to empathize with one of the characters at some point in the movie. DR2000 doesn’t give any effort at all. I watched the whole movie and didn’t like a single character. Why should I? Which character deserves my empathy? Since DR2000 didn’t even try to involve their audience, its plot line score must be reduced.

Other items this film contains:

-Characters with really bad names

-Multiple look-alikes of Mr. Frankenstein

-An entire 78 minutes of movie time!