Average customer rating:
|
No Contest
Starring: Shannon Tweed , Robert Davi , Andrew Dice Clay , Roddy Piper , and Nicholas Campbell Director: Paul Lynch Manufacturer: Sony Pictures ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items: ASIN: B0000694WK Release Date: 2002-07-16 |
Customer Reviews:
No Contest.......2005-08-22
B-Movie Masterpiece!.......2002-12-24
Been wanting this movie for YEARS!..........2002-07-20
The Woman "Die Hard" turns into Typical Bad B-Movie Fare.......2002-02-26
The story in short-- a Miss Universe (or Galaxy as they called it) pageant is taken over by "terrorists" and the leader, Andrew "Dice" Clay (yes, that's right, Andrew Clay) is asking for 5 million dollars in diamonds or all of the hostages will die. Shannon Tweed, the hostess of the pageant, escapes and takes the Bruce Willis role as she sneaks around and sweats and offs baddies. Your typical "Die Hard" plot. Like in "Die Hard," the hotel is taken over ridiculously easy, even by pre-9/11 standards. In fact, when within fifteen minutes after the takeover one of them says "the hotel is completely empty" (by two or three of the five terrorist), it's completely laughable, new hotel or not, inept hotel manager or not (the hotel manager character badly acted).
The only interesting aspect of this movie is it actually tries to appeal the woman audience watcher (this was the time when action movies were often praised for being for both "The girl" and "the guy"). Yes, it tries to do this with Andrew "Dice" Clay. Women do take aggressive roles in the movie (including a police woman) and the women hostages, themselves, do at times manage to overtake the male chauvenist "terrorists." In fact, one of the reasons why the villains seem so villainous is their blatant, negative attitude towards women (except maybe for the computer geek).
But the main reason why we see the villains are evil is that we get to see them kill eleven characters in the beginning of the movie with blood and gore highlighted. Of the blockbusters of this type, I don't recall either "Die Hard" or "Speed" going for the jugular so soon. Once the mostly "Silencer" deaths are dealt with, we later get to see violence against women, villains killing cops as if they are playing a video game, a character being blown up, a character's eyebrow taken off, someone attacked repeatedly by a bag of ice, and a machine gun death that's trying to outdo a scene from "The Godfather." Then there's the gratuitous line from Andrew Clay, "The tiger doesn't do it for the meat. It does it for the blood. Now, that's not sick. That's purpose." The sad thing is, a lot of it seems unnecessary and minimizes the terror. The only interesting aspect of the terrorists, was the whole "fail safe" plot, which may be a difficult to buy, but deals with a bunch of bombs placed against the foundation of a building and the only thing keeping it off is a villain's living pulse within range. Oh, that and they kill the winner of "Miss Galaxy" and make the runner-up the new winner to show a TV audience they mean business.
As for the plot-- why the villains would do what they do, considering the international coverage of an international beauty contest only reveals how dumb the villains are and one wonders why they hadn't died a long time ago from their other acts of third-world terrorism (which they refer to). Because the reason for their terrorism is so ridiculously trivial and unlike "Die Hard" really had no reason for them to take over a hotel, this movie end up truly becoming one of those turkey "B" movies. If it wasn't for the humor (some of it unintentional) this movie would only then be rated V for violence, a lot of which is gratuitous.
Rated Two stars only because it did have its "moments"
Boom Boom Boom Boom.......2001-09-07
Average customer rating: |
Firing Line "Shannon Tweed" / Beyond Justice "Rutger Hauer" / Out of the Blue "Dennis Hopper" / the Radical "Sissy Spacek" [4 DVD Set]
ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD ASIN: B000BR51ZG |
Product Description
INTERACTIVE MENUS, SCENE SELECTIONS, DOLBY DIGITALDVD: