Speed 2 Month Day 4: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave

It’s Independence Day in the United States, celebrating when we threw off the yoke of the oppressive British Empire by giving them a different meaning to the two-finger salute. I choose to be wholly red, white and blue (almost put bleu, which is so wrong on more levels than in D&D) today by showcasing another crappy flick that fits into SPEED 2 Month by, obviously, putting Jan de Bont’s blasphemy of celluloid history to shame.

Once Upon a Time, Marvel Studios didn’t exist as anything more than a production company for animation. In fact, the best live-action product based off a Marvel property before 1990 was THE INCREDIBLE HULK television series. Marvel desperately wanted to get their characters on the silver screen, particularly after the great success of the 1989 BATMAN movie. They had plans for Spider-Man, which was still in development at the time that CAPTAIN AMERICA got the green light, staffed, filmed and then… well, it wasn’t exactly released. Not here. Not where the good captain gets his name from. I wonder why?

The aforementioned Britons got to see the Captain America film two whole years before it went direct-to-video in 1992. I recall reading the updates on the film (and that of Spider-Man and the mire that became) back then. There were so many comic book character movies “in production” at the time, all due to the grand success of Batman, it was hard to keep up. I remember thinking that the movie couldn’t be as bad as the telefilms of the 70’s, where Captain America had a transparent plastic shield he’d mount to his boss trailbike. I remember thinking that it had to be better than the Punisher movie that starred grunting Dolph Lundgren. Really, could it be so bad that 20^th Century Fox would announce the release of the movie with posters and other ads, and then just let it sit? Well, yes.

Let’s start with the budget. 10 million dollars set aside for a movie produced by Menahem Globus, of the notorious Golan-Globus company. With the movie being filmed in, where else for a Globus movie, Yugoslavia, I wonder how much of that money actually went to making the picture. Then we have the star, all-American boy Matt Salinger. Matt, as his surname gives away, is related to noted reclusive writer, J.D. Salinger. In fact, when Matt was announced as Captain America, it drew all sorts of attention on the writer, his daddy. Poppa Salinger went as far to tell some media relations that he wasn’t pleased with Matt’s choice in career, nor that of sister Jessica. It was weird news then, and now would surely be screened to death on all the websites and infotainment shows that stalk celebrities. That aside, Matt isn’t the biggest speedbump in the movie. I didn’t find him terrible, just inexperienced. Though he may have been a bit stiff, it wasn’t his fault to completely shift the history of the character away from fighting Nazi’s during WWII and replace it with Fascist Italians. Yep, to get away from all those movies where Nazism had been overused as villains, some intrepid writer thought making the baddies part of Il Duce’s crew more interesting. Strangely, that’s not that bad of an idea, except that no Nazi-busting by Captain America in WWII is just plain silly. And yes, the script even called for changing the backstory of Cap’s main foe, the Red Skull, to Italian. If you thought the fans scream and cry out now, you should have heard them then. They’d already boycotted the movie before it was released. Did Joe Simon and Jack Kirby get a credit? Sure did. Did they get paid? Probably not, but hey, who cares, right? They weren’t alive at the time… o wait, they were. Hmmm.

Digressing. One day I’ll get into the hideousness of Marvel Entertainment, Warner Brothers and all others that don’t give proper credit and pay the creators properly for their efforts, but not now.

In short, inexperienced actor for Captain America. Nazi Germany ignored. Fascist Italy brought to the forefront. The Red Skull becomes a smooth-talking Italian. Filmed in Yugoslavia. And the coupe-de-grace, the costume had rubber ears. Yes, rubber ears. Here, look for yourself:

The story is that the costume with ear cutouts kept either pulling Salinger’s ears or cutting them, or both, so they rigged up fake ears on the outside of the cowl. It’s not easy to see in the shot, but when you see them on film you howl in hilarity. Later, when the Red Skull removes his mask (yes, it’s a mask here), some fans howl in rage. I never understood why, the Skull didn’t always have a mutilated face to look like a skull. That came later. Dorks.

The movie itself isn’t a thorough disappointment. You do get a good feel of Steve Rogers (aka Captain America, for those not in the know) being a man out of time after being defrosted and returned to the land of the living. Scott Paulin wasn’t terrible as a different version of the Red Skull, it just didn’t work as a whole. The action shots aren’t great, the shield throwing isn’t great (although the physical shield is pretty damned nice to look at) and Ronny Cox was flying higher than Princess Leia in RETURN OF THE JEDI when he was on screen, but this first flop for Marvel is still a far cry from SPEED 2. Remember, 10 million dollar budget vs. 120 million dollar budget. Big plans vs. big hopes for a cash return. Great idea with a bad rewrite and a long gestation period vs. stupid idea with NO PLOT and short gestation period.

A Leaf on the Wind will take a couple of days off to scrape the memory of these movies from the brain, wash, rinse, repeat (with beer), and refill with more shit for you to rediscover. I’m thinking something I actually like. Maybe RED SUN.

Happy 4^th of July.

Speed 2 Month day 3: Why Highlander 2 needs to be remembered

To me, there is no other movie worse than Speed 2. I’m hoping most people that know me, or at least have started to read these since the first day of Speed 2 Month, are aware of that. That isn’t to say that this terrible movie hasn’t been challenged for the top (bottom?) spot, or that it won’t lose in the future, because, let’s face it, Hollywood hasn’t done much but challenge the shitpile for some time now. Sometime during Speed 2 Month I’ll go over the movie that very nearly stole the title away – INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Today though, I’m going to take a look at HIGHLANDER 2, sometimes known as THE QUICKENING, a veritable attack on the senses of fans and viewers alike.

HIGHLANDER, that kooky, cross-casting fantasy movie from former music video director Russell Mulcahy came out in 1986 and took the movie viewing audience by storm. No, really. It did. I mean, you remember when it came out, right? All right, so it tanked at the box office. Still, it blew up the home video market and due to its broad tale, curious, inventive casting and great music, spawned legions of fans. It also spawned a series of spinoff movies, television shows and other media, many of which fall into the “terrible idea” category. The first being HIGHLANDER 2, a woefully inept attempt at making money off the coattails of the earlier movie, which makes me feel as if I’m being mean to the words “woefully” and “inept”.

HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING is so bad it’s practically unwatchable. It makes you wonder what Mulcahy was thinking when he was directing the mess of a script. Not only does the story completely undermine the brilliance of the first movie, you feel as if it just got killed and raped on screen before you – in that order. The truth of it is most people would rather pluck their own eyes out with a spork than watch this explosive degeneration of film artistry. Still, it has merits.

I can tell you’re all bwah-ha-ha’s and guffaws. How can a movie, considered by many critics and reviewers all across the world to be the Worst Ever Made, have merit? Simple. Doubling a movie’s budget does not mean it’ll be successful. Slapping your stars in ironclad contracts will do one of two things: some will act as they always do, performing their best because they’re professionals or they may just “phone it in” and showcase their complete disdain for whatever is being filmed at the time. You’ll find both in this movie; I’ll let you decide who is who (Virginia Madsen doesn’t count, she’s just awful in everything). See the merit yet? Okay, to go one further, and this is the obvious bit of it: this is the bottom of the fucking shit barrel. Something, somewhere has got to be better, right? Go out and watch that instead! Quit thinking every sequel is going to get you what GODFATHER 2 or THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK delivered.

By now you’re thinking that I’ve already found my replacement for SPEED 2 as the worst of the worst. I refute that, for a few reasons. One of which is the way SPEED 2 was marketed to the viewer. It was held up as the SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER! (Cue fireworks) Watch! See! Pay scads of money for a great time! And all that. Its budget was also in excess of 100 million, which Highlander 2 didn’t even get close to, including after releasing at least two other versions, just to try and smoothe over the ruffled feathers of fans, the director and humanity at large. Small studios don’t get the dressing down that the larger ones do, and that’s due to their horrid marketing goons. Every single one of them should get MY yearly salary and do the job they’re supposed to do, just to see how different they work. Schmucks. A second reason HIGHLANDER 2 stands higher than SPEED 2? Sean Connery. He trumps Jason Patric any day. Even in a ZARDOZ costume.

Crap does have merit if you know where to look. Imperiously, SPEED 2 will never have merit. Not even in Canada.

For the upcoming holiday, I’ll show off some superheroic chops with a Captain America zinger that struck J.D. Salinger to hide from a whole different side of the media.

Speed 2 Month – Day 2. We are not on cruise control.

The motto of the day at A Leaf of the Wind is “Eternally Hopeful”. Considering the basis of the plot of our focus this month, one would have to be eternally hopeful. In fact, I would propose that any movie that pushes into the budgetary levels of over 100 million dollars and expects profit is ‘eternally hopeful’.

SPEED was released in 1994 and was made with a budget between 25 and 30 million dollars, depending on your source. By the time it had reached the home video market, it’d made in excess of 121 million at the US box office and more than 350 million worldwide. In other words, a hit for the summer release schedule. No matter your personal thoughts of whether or not the movie was worth the ticket price, regardless of personal opinion of Keanu Reeves’ abilities and even if you feel that the bus jump was completely preposterous, the movie made money, surprising many. So, as most movie studios want that fast buck, a sequel was green lit quite quickly, much to the unending chagrin of cinephiles.

I’ll keep it brief, as we have a WHOLE MONTH to go over the intricacies of totalitarian turpitude that is (arguably) the Worst Movie Ever Made. SPEED 2 was released in June of 1997, with a budget between 110 and 160 million dollars, again, depending on sources. Considering the usual budget for a movie where any of it is in water, I’d tend to believe the higher figure. During its run at the US box office, it gathered up a “meager” 48 million dollars, while totaling out at 164 million worldwide. See Hollywood, sometimes you may put a spit shine on shit and hand it to us, but there is a time when the viewing audience says “Fuck you!” rather vehemently. (Insert observation – I sometimes wish that had happened with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.) Yes, SPEED 2 was a bomb, a complete, utter dud of monumental levels. Sure, it may have seen a better profit than BATTLEFIELD EARTH or the latest Lone Ranger debacle, but man… this crapfest was screaming “Mystery Science Theatre 3000, I am for YOU!” as it hit the first theatre.

I’m digressing.

It’s obvious that the studios were ‘eternally hopeful’ they would have another hit on their hands, as I’m sure most investors would be. Still, SPEED was no STAR WARS, DIE HARD or even a PHANTASM. This was a fairly one-note idea that would really need to be retooled to make it work. The director, Jan de Bont, spent roughly one third of the budget on a spectacular boat collision effect towards the end of the movie that made the bus jump in the first movie not only that much more plausible, but entertaining and exciting as well. It screamed of, “Plot? What plot? We have crashes and ‘splosions for you rubes!” I’m sure they were also hopeful that Jason Patric (best known for THE LOST BOYS, maybe? No?) would supplant popular Keanu, who chose to do CHAIN REACTION over this mess. Hope didn’t hurt, but it surely didn’t help.

Looking at CHAIN REACTION, a forgettable film, but not a bad story, really, (your opinion may vary, of course) if you can follow it. I like the heavy, applied science fiction of it and the multi-faceted characters that lace the detailed plot. O, I’m sure the science is flawed and the fact people wanted Fred Ward to be doing more TREMORS movies than this kept people away, but when isn’t science fiction flawed in some way? In Star Trek, the Enterprise’s warp drive works by smashing matter and anti-matter together in a matrix controlled by a farcical crystal called dilithium. Yup, crashing two diametrically opposed things together to create power sounds so controllable or feasible. Except when it’s possible. I’d watch the movie again to gain some traction on this flawed approach of comparison, but I don’t want to.

CHAIN REACTION was called a “minor financial hit” (if you’re to believe Wikipedia) even though it grossed only about 60 million worldwide off a 50 million dollar budget. It’s my understanding that a movie needs to double its budget to break even, so I’m not sure how that’s possible. Then again, I’m not working in an industry where a set budget could have you buy a piece of Somalia and become a warlord. Is CHAIN REACTION a lesser movie because it didn’t make as much money as SPEED 2? If we were examining only that movie merit is based off box office receipts, then many of my personal favorites would never even chart. I’m certain that would be the same for anyone that watches and enjoys movies.

Eternally hopeful also doesn’t merit much when it comes to movies. THE IRON GIANT died at the box office and ended careers at Warner Brothers because it was hoped to be the great return of Warner’s animation to the big screen. It remains one of my favorite animated movies of all time. It enjoyed a much larger audience after the fact, like many ‘cult’ movies tend to. BLADE RUNNER follows a similar path, if you can believe it. I don’t think SPEED 2 will ever be considered a ‘cult’ movie, or be eternally hopeful on that front. I’ll find a way to remind you all why.

Coming up, HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING and why you should never forget it exists.

SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL MONTH!

It came to me not a few weeks past that I was neglecting my Speed 2 duties, in that I was not reminding all those in earshot that some things are best left alone. Here at A Leaf on the Wind, there has been a Speed 2 month in the past. I'm reviving it, with more than just focus on film -- bad, perceived to be bad, or otherwise.

Starting tomorrow, I'll investigate the 15 Movies Better than Speed 2 column I wrote some years ago, when Myspace was all the rage. Remember Myspace? It died as quickly as Jason Patric's career after Speed 2 was pulled from theatres. I'll cover the 15 movies periodically through the month, with some other aspects of what I deem the worst movie ever made (that I've seen). If you think anything Uwe Boll has ever produced is worse that Speed 2, you're missing the point, which will be gone over, repeatedly, through the month of July.

This is not a "hate" discussion, per se. This is intended to be eye-opening. Also, if you have an opinion and have never watched Speed 2, you need to see it first to understand the audacious crappiness that was intended to be entertainment. The Teletubbies were intended entertainment too, yet they had a specific age focus. Who or what was the intended focus of an overproduced, overpriced, overbearing Speed 2? A movie even, let's say it together now, KEANU REEVES wouldn't staple his name to?

All of these questions will be answered, hopefully with the assistance of some of you fine fans that actually enjoy this horrid pile of drek. Honestly, I don't know how you sleep at night.

Til tomorrow.