Megaforce

Despite official denials by leaders of the free world, sources now confirm the existence of Megaforce, a phantom army of super elite fighting men whose weapons are the most powerful science can devise. 

Their mission....to preserve freedom and justice battling the forces of tyranny and evil in every corner of the globe. 

This 1982 summer schlockbuster--helmed by stuntman Hal Needham, director of the beloved Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run II (1984) and Rad (1986) among others--is like some demented offspring of a Sid and Marty Krofft kiddie TV show and a U. S. armed forces recruitment commercial; it's basically a live action version of a 1980s boy's cartoon/toy line like G.I. Joe or M.A.S.K. but with characters sketched even MORE paper thin than the animated Duke or Matt Trakker from those cartoons ever were, and was undoubtedly one of the inspirations for Team America: World Police (2004).

I wouldn't in good conscience ever call Megaforce one of the great films of all time, but it certainly was pretty damn stoopid entertaining fun to this lunkhead.  Filmed using IntroVision, a pre-CGI type of front projection composited in camera, Megaforce looks pretty good even on my bare bones budget DVD, though with a 20 million dollar budget behind it had really ought to.  There's some nice miniature model work, some kick ass 'splosions, a few holograms/holographs, and lotsa, lotsa spandex with costumes designed by Mattel, but it's obvious the majority of the budget went towards the spandex, er, I mean the full size working vehicles used in the film: a whole fleet of motorcycles with machine guns and rocket launchers mounted on the handlebars (Pew!); tricked out dune buggies with slick racing stripes that shoot cool blue Terminator Future War style lasers animated by Ralph Bakshi Productions (Pew! Pew!); and even some crazy high tech six wheeled mobile computer lab thing with a revolving radar dish on top and everything (Pew! Pew! Pew! Beep! Boop!). Totally f'n awesome stuff like that, poppin' wheelies, jumpin' over tanks and shootin' stuff--20 mil worth baby!  Oh, and there's a cameo by a Rubik's Cube too.

I won't spoil all the details of the-film-with-the-catchphrase "Deeds Not Words" for anyone that hasn't seen Megaforce yet, but will just say the plot revolves around the theft of a cigarette lighter and something about the invasion of the fictitious and peaceful Republic of Sardun by the military forces of its aggressive and equally fictitious neighbor Gamibia, led by the ruthless Duke Guerera played by Henry Silva (who I recognized from a few old episodes of The Outer Limits) in a prescient foreshadowing of the eerily similar invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army eight short years later in 1990.  There are also references to a secret underground base in the desert a la Area 51 which houses this super elite international phantom army, along with a high tech computer system that monitors all global communications, friendly or hostile, with the personal information of every living human being on earth stored in the giant computer's data banks, creepily available at the touch of a button to members of Megaforce... paging Edward Snowden... oh wait, he won't be born until 1983 so wouldn't be much help in '82 anyway, so forget you melon farmer!

But enough about cigarette lighters, geopolitics and privacy (or the lack thereof in the modern age), one other thing Megaforce was way ahead of its time in depicting was FLYING MOTORCYCLES!  Yes flying motorcycles, though there are also scenes of regular non-flying motorcycles and dune buggies parachuting out of the sky from planes, I'm talking about honest to God flying motorcycles here: armored bikes with light sensitive paint, capable of running totally silent in stealth mode--though their normal engine sound is a deep electronic rumble similar to the legendary Evel Knievel's mythical Stratocycle; these bad boys can shoot rockets and laser beams from their handlebars, can emit a smoke screen in all the colors of the rainbow from their tail pipes, have a built in self destruct mechanism in case they fall into enemy hands and ALSO THEY CAN FLY!

A word or two must be said about the star of the film, Ace Hunter as played by a helmet haired Barry Bostwick.  Oozing oodles of goofy charm, Ace Hunter rocks a Jesus beard and baby blue silk headband to complement his standard issue body hugging spandex military uniform, as he quips his way through the film as leader of Megaforce.

How smooth is Ace Hunter?  His trademark move is kissing his thumb and then giving the thumbs up sign to his Sardunian love interest Major Zara played by the lovely Persis Khambatta, sporting a bit more hair here than she did in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).

The rousing soundtrack is pretty great with some nice music video era electronic synths and a patriotic sounding martial main theme by Jerrold Immel.  The best though is the totally awesome song "Mega Force" by the band 707 that plays over the end credits along with clips from the film.  This catchy hard rock guitar anthem also repeats on a loop over the DVD main menu so if you happen to fall asleep watching it, you may wake up humming along with the words memorized through subliminal osmosis.  Here's the aforementioned song over the end credits; but just a word of warning if you'd like to avoid spoilers, since this is basically a greatest hits montage of the entire film:



Best line is a toss up.  First one is from Duke Guerera the bad guy to Ace Hunter the good guy near the climax of the film:
"You're an idealist.  In the seventies we could be idealists, but today... it's too expensive!"

Later, Hunter says to Guerera:
"The good guys always win... even in the eighties."

Wait, what the hell?!?

And here's a trailer.  Enjoy!

Viva Knievel!

"One fine day a man came to town, a king of the road with a helmet for a crown, a motorcycle bird who is never comin' down..."

--From the Ballad of Evel Knievel, Anonymous, c. 1776 BC, translated from the ancient Babylonian text by Abed "Fred" Alhazred

Warning: spoilers ahead!

Without resorting to hyperbole, Viva Knievel! (1977) is the greatest action-adventure film of all time.

My history with this film goes back to the spring of 1977 when your humble host was traveling in South America "researching" the hallucinogenic properties of certain psychoactive tree frogs of the Amazon rain forest.  On the return leg of one trip I had a five hour layover in Mexico City and eventually found myself in a small movie theater with a few hours to kill before my flight.  Sitting down in the cool dark of el cine, armed with a small popcorn and a large Sonoran desert toad, I was exposed that day to the magnificent glory of Viva Knievel! and the awesome healing light of the one and only Evel Knievel, and verily I came to accept Him into my heart and soul as mine own lord and savior.

When the credits finally rolled I felt like every single bone in my body, along with my mind, had been broken, and the only way to mend them again was to get back on my hog, lick the toad and watch the film again, and again, and again...which I did several times every day for the next few weeks, until some new sci-fi flick by the director of THX-1138 finally pushed Viva Knievel! out of the theater.

Eighteen grueling months later as a recently converted and fanatical orthodox Knievelist, rabidly and LOUDLY attempting to spread the gospel that "Evel is the reason!" at airports, church socials and county fairs throughout Mexico, I found myself disenchanted with the Church of the Holy Cape and Helmet and eventually hitchhiked my way back to the States in order to lick both my physical and psychic wounds and hopefully return to my former well paying job as astronomer in residence at Underwriters Laboratories, where I had previously worked on various projects under the auspices of an extremely generous MK-Ultra grant.

I have not seen the damned film since then.

Keeping my own personal experience in mind, I warn my readers to tread carefully when dabbling in the red, white and blue arts.  Evel is a charismatic showman and almost as hard a habit to kick as Mexican Coke.

A few points to consider before deciding to embark down the 106 minute long ramp of insanity that is Viva Knievel!:

• Evel Knievel is like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus only brought Santa Claus brand toys to distribute to orphans.
• Evel is the reason that lame children throw away their crutches and walk again.
• Lauren Hutton:  "I've had a front row seat at this ugly spectacle".  So true on so many levels!
• Evel is like a charismatic cross between Jesus, Elvis Presley and Superman, and like the latter two, he's one of the few Caucasian men that can really wear a cape and look good doing it.
• The Stratocycle is ah-mah-zing!  It has an American flag and a bald eagle on it (Stephen Colbert would love it).  And it sounds exactly like what I imagine Darth Vader's space toilet sounds like when he flushes in his executive bathroom/meditation chamber aboard the Super Star Destroyer Executor.

This:

Sounds like this:

• Leslie Nielsen plays a surprisingly great villain.
• Two words: Marjoe Gortner.  He's the standout in the film as Jessie the junkie; he was also disturbingly great as Jody the psycho from Earthquake (1974).  Really, Google this guy.
• Gene Kelly as an alcoholic ex-motorcycle jumper/deadbeat dad?...yes that Gene Kelly.
• There's a byzantine subplot involving the bad guys plotting to create an exact replica of Knievel's jumping cycle and tractor trailer in an overly complicated plan to smuggle cocaine out of Mexico.
• Mr. Kathy Lee "Frank" Gifford gets quite a bit of airtime as Evel's announcer.
• It could just be me and my ears but Gene Kelly's little bastard kid has a preternaturally deep voice; either the kid was going through puberty during filming or his voice was later re-dubbed by a young Don LaFontaine.
• Helmets had no straps back then, you just stick one on your head and hope it doesn't fall off.
• Instead of Viva Knievel! this film could almost be called Fathers and Sons.
• Again this may just be me, but I could swear Steven Spielberg ripped off several scenes for the truck chase scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark from the final chase scene in this movie.  There are several beats that look almost exactly the same!
• During the end chase scene, Evel Knievel and Leslie Nielsen ride into a small Mexican village, basically terrorizing the entire population of townsfolk, chickens, and goats.
• It's too bad there weren't any sequels; I would love to have seen a whole series of Knievel films that took place in different locales: Konichiwa Knievel!, L'chaim Knievel!, Da Svidaniya Knievel!

Here's the trailer:



And may Knievel have mercy upon your blasted soul if you do choose to look upon His Evel face with your puny mortal eyes.

You have been warned.

Race with the Devil

Winnebago Warriors Part 2

Race with the Devil (1975) is arguably the greatest genre film ever made involving an RV (recreational vehicle).  OK, so there may not be all that many RV themed films to begin with; the only other one that your humble reviewer is even familiar with is the recently reviewed Ghosts That Still Walk, but Race with the Devil must surely be the most well known.

Released smack dab in the middle of the devil obsessed 1970s,  this film really does have it all: a big ass RV, motorcycle racing, Peter Fonda, car chases, robed cultists, a scary tree, Loretta ("Hot Lips" Houlihan from TV's M*A*S*H) Swit in a tight sweater, animal sacrifice, dirt biking, Satanism, female nudity only partially obscured by flame, that thing when you go to make dinner in your RV and then a rattlesnake jumps out of the cupboard at you, vehicular destruction, poolside leering, human sacrifice, a ring of fire, and last but certainly not least: public library non-circulating reference book theft.

Best line: After Warren Oates takes a spill on his dirt bike into a big puddle of water: "I'm getting too old for this shit!".  This has surely got to be one of the earliest sincere instances of this hoary saying before its eventual descent into action film cliche.

In spite of all joking at the preposterous absurdity of the whole thing, this film is actually really pretty scary and can be downright creepy, especially in the early scenes involving the cult at the sacrificial tree (which looks like a close cousin to the Louisiana devil tree from the recent True Detective).  One memorably terrifying action sequence has the RV vacationeers trying to flee the scene of human sacrifice they've inadvertently witnessed while several murderous cultists cling to the back of their RV, their hooded faces illumined by the hellish red glare of tail lights as they smash in the rear window in an attempt to gain ingress and thwart the protagonists' escape.  It's a truly violent and viscerally effective scene of motor vehicle violation.

But as the tag line says:  "When you race with the Devil, you'd better be faster than hell!"

Trailer:



One thing is for sure, a PG rated movie from the '70s like Race with the Devil could be way more explicit in terms of nudity and violence than a modern PG movie; it's hard to believe this film shares the same exact rating as something innocuous like Disney's Frozen; that would certainly make for an interesting double feature if you'd like to traumatize the kiddies for life!

P.S.: If you have the chance I highly recommend checking this film out on the recent Blu-ray from Shout! Factory (a double feature with Dirty Mary Crazy Larry).  It really looks amazing, almost like it was filmed yesterday instead of forty years ago.

Here's Dead Kennedys' "Winnebago Warrior" performed by The Fractal Cauliflowers to play us out: