Jun. 5th, 2008

annathepiper: (Dib WTF)
The first round of the Great Movie Suckoff Marathon is now complete. Our contenders: the Sci-Fi Pictures Original movie Phantom Force vs. the theatrical release Ultraviolet. The former was so helpfully provided to me by [livejournal.com profile] kathrynt; the latter, recommended by [livejournal.com profile] waysofseeing. Well done, both of you, for offering up some deeply wretched fodder for this round of the competition.

And now, the verdict: Ultraviolet!

I thought at first it was going to be a difficult choice. Phantom Force after all had some godawful acting, including delightfully wretched accents, and incoherent splicing of disparate plot elements into one big mess of a movie. It also had Richard Grieco as the male lead. I am informed by the aforementioned Kathryn that he was the "other guy in 21 Jump Street, the one who wasn't Johnny Depp". (To this I must add that yeah, that's about right; Mr. Depp is both cuter and a way, way better actor. Sorry, Richard!) However, it is also worth noting that in one respect this movie did actually surprise me--because it killed off the perky blonde chick who liked Grieco's character, and even more amazingly, the black chick survived the movie. And she got to contribute amusing voodoo mileage to one of the final fight scenes, too.

However, Ultraviolet beats it, hands down. As per the previous advice given, I did watch the 88-minute theatrical cut for maximum amusement value--and oh my yes that was wretched. [livejournal.com profile] solarbird and I knew we were in trouble when our heroine delivers this voiceover at the beginning that somehow managed to be both soporific and vomit-inducing. Not long thereafter, once we got into the first fight scene, Dara let out with "Christian Dior, SUPER SPY!" I answered with, during the first of the many Dramatic Pauses in the middle of the many fight scenes, "HI KEEBA!"

And honestly, the fight scenes were the best bits of the movie. It was pretty, I'll give it that, with this sort of eerie, dreamlike quality to the whole thing. The heroine's hair and outfit randomly changing colors was kind of cool, even if it was for no apparent reason. But not even her electric blue jacket could save her from the WANGST WANGST WANGST WANGST she fell into in between all the fight scenes.

For final giggle value, I realized that the bad guy in this movie was the same actor who played the extremely creepy fetishist guy in a second season X-Files episode I watched just last night--the episode "Irresistible", with the guy who kept cutting hair and fingernails off his victims and who eventually kidnapped Scully. His voice wasn't so creepy in this movie, but his face was familiar, and his voice did ping me just enough that after I confirmed it was him, I kept wanting to call "Is your hair normal or dry?" to the screen.

So, yeah. Ultraviolet wins this round hands down. But the fight ain't over yet, folks. Next up: Decoys 2: Alien Seduction vs. Incubus. With William Shatner. In Esperanto.

May 2025

S M T W T F S
    123
45678 9 10
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627 2829 3031

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 5th, 2025 04:22 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios