MegaFault: Lots of blame to pass around, but I wouldn't say 'mega' amounts...

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Okay, after being absent in my oh-so-valuable reviews of all that is cheesy in the world of B-movies, I'm finally back to a level of free time which allows me to indulge in this irresistible fixation of mine. The first movie I chose to review sadly has no deep meaning for me, no grandiose karmic communication I felt had to be imparted to an unsuspecting world. Nope. It just happens to be what was in my DVR for me this weekend.

So here goes a review of MegaFault, another venture from Asylum Home Entertaiment which has a lot of potential which was allowed to all shake to the bottom while the CGI team tried to make the graphics more believable. There was a lot to work with this time in the way of the cast, including Eriq La Salle, of ER fame (as well as one of my favorite 80's movies, Coming To America), Bruce Davison (X-men and a schnike-load of other work), Brittany Murphy (whose "girly" movies I've never liked, but could appreciate her fortitude in working opposite of Ashton Kutcher), and Paul Logan (who others may say isn't a plus, but whom I loved in Komodo Vs Cobra). To the credit of the cast they all played their parts very well. Maybe too well for a movie of this limited caliber. There wasn't any sense of fun at any point from any of the cast, except an occasional smart-ass line delivered by the background actors. I know this is a disaster movie, but it's a very far-fetched disaster movie, and one put out by Asylum Home Entertainment. C'mon folks, I know it's not as fun of a premise as Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, but roll with the punches and revel in the cheese factor!

I think the seriousness that "end of the world" movies incite is what turns me off of them. There seems to be a fear of making fun of anything, no matter how ludicrous the storyline gets. We have a man who specializes in blowing up mountains, named Boomer, and when he takes out a mountain, it causes a giant crack across North America, pretty much dividing the United States in two as it tears through the earth. The military enlist cute little Dr. Amy Lane who has no problem leaving her daughter and husband behind to go investigate the earthquakes, and then get called upon to calculate where the military should fire this secret weapon they have in space that can (wait for it....) start earthquakes! Back to the old "cure amnesia" theory of halting a crisis, whereby you simply have to start another earthquake in the right spot and the world will remember it's real name is Alice, and she has a dog named... I mean, you'll stop the first earthquake.

Not to be outdone, the cure then weakens the mantle. Naturally we then get a mega volcano that has to be stopped by blowing up a whole bunch of stuff, 'cause, well, they were running out of reasons why Boomer needed to keep hanging around.

There's not much of substance along the way, but you do end up liking Amy Lane and Boomer, because they're played by actors who know how to create empathy. Again, it's just misplaced for a little movie like this. They're acting like they're going for an Oscar instead of just trying to keep their careers in forward momentum.

The special effects here are typical Asylum. Not horrible, not great, but still just bad enough to elicit a giggle. I think that's why I keep watching Asylum's movies, because at least half of them I can get through as a result of that cheese factor. The other half (such as The Terminators) are so bad I can't get past the first thirty minutes, despite my stubborn, masochistic nature.

If you're a fan of disaster flicks, you will probably enjoy Megafault. If you're a fan of cheesy movies, you'll be left wanting (and feeling a little sorry for Brittany Murphy and Eric La Salle).

30,000 Leagues Under The Sea: 10,000 Leagues Less Quality Than It's Inspiration

Dead weight of a plot sinks this unseaworthy tale.

I was bored and decided, what the heck, I'll watch an obvious quest for accidental viewings that is 30,000 Leagues Under The Sea. It has Lorenzo Lamas, so I figured it could be good for a few laughs. And it should have been.

This was frustrating, because it could have been very entertaining. They went with some slick CGI on the submarines and the nifty mechanical squid beasties at Captain Nemo's command. There were even a few mildly entertaining exchanges of dialogue. There was a little bit of action. There was a little bit of intrigue. But there wasn't enough of anything to keep it afloat, even for the less than 90 minutes of screen time they invested in it.

The main thing it was missing was Captain Nemo. We have to wait until at least halfway into it before we meet him, and then he's there just to deliver a few hyperbolic "I'm going to show the surface world the evils of it's ways by launching nuclear missiles at it!" lines. He's supposed to be mad! Where's the crazy? Where's the feral looks as he realizes his plans are being foiled by land lubbers? Where's anything that would have made him more interesting?

Sad thing is his character had a lot of promise, but they kept his screen time so minimal there was no chance to let the psychotic inside of him shine, like it should have. Instead we have to follow around Lorenzo Lamas and his crew, which includes his ex-wife, and none of them are interesting enough to make me care if they survive or drown. Again, they could have been, but they don't focus on any of them long enough to draw you into their world. The banter between Lamas' character and his ex-wife is bearable, but lacks the spark to provide any believable tension.

The basic plot is a submarine gets attacked by a squid beastie, and is stuck at the bottom of the ocean. Lamas and his crew are sent in with their nifty technology that creates a giant oxygen bubble underwater, with the intent to use it to save the crew of the submarine. Captain Nemo has designs on both the nuclear warheads on the sub, and the oxygen bubble technology. He wants the bubble to restore the lost city of Atlantis, which he has discovered. Things just get a little waffley after that, and I just nursed my glass of wine and waited for the inevitable predictable ending.

This is a movie that actually would have benefited from having more screen time, as long as it was used to develop the characters properly, flesh out the plot so things made sense, and given much more Captain Nemo. I was surprised it wasn't a made-for-tv movie, since it had that feel all over it. If it had been a mini-series, I think it actually would have turned into something great, instead of this rushed-through, by-the-numbers (minus one) formula.

Poor Lorenzo Lamas. You're not as great as a David Hasselhoff, but you definitely don't deserve being stuck in a "Stephen Baldwin is the only Baldwin we could get" role like this one. Personally I can't wait to see the upcoming Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus! It has a mega shark, a giant octopus, you, Mr. Lamas, and Deborah Gibson. If that kind of setup doesn't provide a ton of laughs, my faith in this world will simply be shattered.

Maneater: Lions and tigers and Gary Busey, oh my!

Cute tiger plays a little rough.

Okay, there aren't any lions, but there is a very pretty tiger, and Gary Busey. I was kind of hoping for good ol' crazy Gary Busey, but he was very, very subdued, to the point I wondered what dosage they had him on. His character wasn't a wild and crazy guy, or anything, but I expected a little bit more life out of Gary Busey performance. In fact, this movie felt like everyone walked around in a fog, so half the time I spent viewing it I just wanted to see shots of the pretty tiger.

It starts off with a driver swerving on a foggy road to avoid a child sleepwalking. The tiger gets loose, but leaves the child alone. The driver, not so much. Then there are a few more killings, and the tiger's tracks are discovered, so we don't have any of the usual wide range denial on the parts of all the characters who insist it can't possibly be a tiger. Nope. They all agree that it's a tiger, and the media swarms all over it, making things worse.

The sleep walking boy is featured in this story, but his supposed significance never really pans out. The tiger follows the boy to where he lives with his mother in a trailer, and just sits outside as if the tiger were on a vigil, or even playing bodyguard to the boy. The boy's mother keeps him out of school, and educates him by making him memorize the Bible a chapter at a time. She wakes him up each morning with a verse, and his first words of the day must be to tell her the book and chapter the verse comes from. She claims she doesn't want him corrupted by the world. She is a very non-sympathetic character. I'll leave my analysis of the mother at that.

The boy runs all around through the woods, nearly causing car wrecks as he darts in from of vehicles, and shouting to the tiger to warn it that soldiers are on the way to kill it. It takes too much time for it to be made clear that the boy honestly didn't think the tiger he sees is real, and that he just dreamed it. And then he keeps dreaming about it, predicting who the tiger will kill next. This plot thread could have been very interesting, but it's not consistent, so it's just mildly irritating.

Gary Busey plays the town sheriff who just wants to protect everyone. There are plenty of other characters that are colorful in a pastel sort of way, including a British tiger hunter trying to redeem himself by hunting this town's tiger. Eventually the sheriff, the hunter, and the boy are all involved with tracking down the tiger, with the boy thinking the tiger is nice because he doesn't have a television and hasn't seen the pile of body parts the hungry kitty has left behind.

The ending is predictable, but it at least provides closure for all the aspects of the story. For a man versus beast movie, this one is pretty boring, bland, and not worth making time to watch. There are a couple of funny lines, but they're few and far between. If it's on and you have nothing else you feel the urge to view, go for it. Otherwise, let's release this one back into the wild and hope they don't make a sequel.

In the meantime, let's enjoy the song that I couldn't get out of my head as soon as I heard the title of this movie!

King Of The Lost World: a.k.a. 'Poor Bruce Boxleitner'

No one in their right mind wants to be king of this...

Dear god, this isn't even worth the $7.98 price tag I see at Amazon. Supposedly based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel, The Lost World, it introduces a giant gorilla right off the bat, which apparently isn't even in the book. It at least looks cool, but the glimpses we get of the furry guy are few and far between, and pretty cheap CGI, even for a B-movie of this 'caliber.'

They twist the story around by having planes crash land like flies hitting a bug zapper as soon as they enter the air space. In the original tale people arrive there quite deliberately, and are able to leave. In this 'adaptation' rescue planes crash as well, you know, to add insult to injury. Radio equipment is stripped out of fuselage by the natives, presumably by other survivors trying to get out of this movie, er, off the island. So there's basically no escape, even at the very end. Truly, you feel sorry for those that make it out alive, because that means there may be a sequel.

We're promised dinosaurs and giant spiders and giant scorpions, and we do eventually get them. However we have to sit through a lot of setup to make sure we, as an audience, understand that this plane has crashed on this island, lots of people are hurt, but about half of them are willing to venture over the hill and into the jungle to search for the other half of their plane. Oh, and there's disagreement about that, but it doesn't amount to more than surly looks. And when we do finally get spiders, it's a little CGI and a lot of rubber puppets getting thrown around. It should have been funny, but the film has such a heavy overtone that the potential is lost.

Funny thing about this jungle world is that we only see spiders in one area, killer vines in another area, and giant scorpions in another. Realistically there should have been these critters all over the place waiting to take advantage of a huge cast of easy snacks. And if the Queen Of Cheese is using the word 'realistically' in a criticism of a movie, that should give you an idea of how boring and clunky this sucker was that I found myself distracted by such concerns.

There are previous crash survivors on the island who have naturally developed their own primitive, savage society, complete with a language that they must have created for whatever reason, but we don't know why, or care. They paint themselves black and white, strategically wear strips of linen, and all have perfectly straight, white teeth after eating who knows what with limited hygiene resources. They still speak English when they feel like it, but that's only long enough to let one of the wives hit on Bruce Boxleitner's character. This tribe also grabs the newest crash survivors and apparently sacrifice the half that stayed behind with the first piece of the plane, because you only see them get herded off, never to be seen again. Lucky them. The other half that ventured into the jungle must wait it out until the bitter end, like the viewer.

As is often the case in badly done bad movies of this ilk, the cast is horribly wasted. The four main characters reprising a version of Doyle's creations all do well with the little they're given, and have decent chemistry between each other. You actually hope they all make it out alive so they can go beat the living crap out of their agents for putting their name up for this. Especially Bruce Boxleitner who deserves so much better than this (and especially better than a Transmorphers 2 for god's sake). Sadly, I must put him in my You Poor Bastard category.

This should have been awesome, cheesy, and loads of fun. Instead it felt a little like Lost mixed with King Kong mixed with all of those reality shows where everyone yells at everyone else, then cries about it, then form alliances to push the other team off the island. Instead we get clunky script, dialogue, special effects, storyline, and none of the requisite cheese factor that should have gone with it. This was a complete waste of time. You have been warned.

Alien Agent: Not exactly James Bond, but still entertaining...

This is about as much screen time as Billy Zane gets...

Oh, poor Billy Zane. First your official website is under construction, so I can't even properly link to you. Then you get 'top' billing in a ripoff of all the 'aliens want to take over our planet and are already hiding in plain sight among us' sort of movies, and get a total of fifteen minutes of screen time. You seem to be getting work, but it's nothing of the box office status like Titanic, or cheese factor of The Phantom. I must therefore place you in my 'You Poor Bastard' category. I'm sure your world will come crashing down around you now that the self-proclaimed Queen Of Cheese has made her declaration, but you must carry on, dear man.

Alas, my fondness for Billy Zane and his capacity to deliver quality cheese has made me digress from actually talking about Alien Agent, which for a completely unoriginal concept is still a lot of fun. Once again it's the characters that draw me in and keep me engaged when I would otherwise leave the room without hitting pause while I refill my coffee cup.

An alien world is dying and needs a new world to sustain itself. The good aliens don't want to destroy sentient life in order to survive, but the bad aliens don't give a rip. In fairness, these bad aliens have been living amongst us for awhile, secretly building a little wormhole/stargate/portal device. After even a small amount of exposure to the 'parade of humanity' I think any alien race would not consider us sentient, let alone worth saving. Especially if they check out all the cheesy movies some of us have on our DVRs...

But again I digress. The good aliens send one agent, named Rykker, to come and save us from the whole gang of bad aliens. This bad ass with a good heart is played by Mark Dacascos. He plays a wooden sort of character with brief moments of funny, especially when he deals with the teenager who tags along after the requisite personal tragedy leaves her all alone in the world. Julie is played by Emma Lahana, and is another former Power Ranger who has impressed me in a subsequent role. She pulls off overly-confident, independent young lady very believably, and provides the comic relief throughout. There's one scene when she rushes up to grab a discarded alien weapon to defend Rykker. She picks it up with a mannerism which clearly expresses 'Ew!! Gun!', and then segues beautifully into 'Oh, that's how it's supposed to go!' and starts firing. I could totally see my niece doing the exact same thing, and it's completely understandable, and authentic. I think this actress could get a lot of work if she has a good agent.

The leader of the bad aliens is named Isis, of all things, and is played by Amelia Cooke. She's pretty, tough, and delivers dark looks that could melt someone's brain if channeled properly. Despite the hackneyed script, her character is very interesting, especially when you realize there's a connection between her and Rykker.

The movie stays pretty much on track, although it's a short trip with a lot of sight seeing into gun fights, martial arts exchanges, and car chases. There's not a lot to work with, but the filler keeps me entertained, and the chemistry amongst the characters keeps me wondering who's going to survive, and who's going to end up with whom.

The ending confused me, though. I couldn't figure out if a character intentionally deceived another one, or if they really thought the device they hopped into would send them back home. I feel so forgiving of this movie because of the mild entertainment it provided, that the only complaint I really have is that it didn't give proper closure.

The only other bad thing about the ending is it's obviously hinting at a sequel, or even a series, which I think would be a mistake. This is the sort of movie that could venture into the melodramatic and take itself way too seriously very easily. Last thing we need is another sci fi series like that when we're finally getting rid of the snobbish version of Battlestar Galactica...