Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Only now does it occur to me... MUTANTS

Only now does it occur to me... that I've now literally seen Junta Juleil hall-of-famer Michael Ironside phone in a performance.

Indeed he spends more than an hour of this film in the back of a van, earpiece firmly attached, gabbin' on the phone, and occasionally molding his eyebrows into expressions of surprise or concern.  Sorry to see you like this, Mike.

So what are we looking at here?  This is MUTANTS (2008), essentially a SyFy Channel-caliber film  about zombie mutants in an evil sugar factory.  There's everything from poorly-considered Russian accents, meager lighting, and several explosions whose CGI would compare unfavorably to that of an early 90s screen-saver.

 FOOOOOSH... better to have blown it up with flying toasters, I think.

The other "name" in the film, if we can call him that, is Brian De Palma-alumnus Steven Bauer, who can't even be bothered to phone in his performance– he delivers it via webcam:

A classic one-liner that will live on in the annals of film:  "Get to the cane mill and put an end to it."  Might I submit instead: "Blow 'em up into sweet nothings!" or "Go raise some cane!"

Anyway, back to Ironside: he plays the typical paramilitary badass we know and love ("Colonel Gauge"), but, as stated previously, the budget confines him to the back of a van for more than 75% of the run-time.  In the final twenty minutes, he boldly exits the van and kicks some righteous ass:

–er, no he doesn't.  He just wanders around an empty warehouse for a couple minutes and stabs a fat man.

And not the good kind.

Then there's the indignity of the end credits, whereupon his military rank is misspelled:

"Colonal?" 

In closing, I shall sum up the film– and Ironside's involvement– with a screen capture of Iron Mike staring in disbelief at an empty clip of ammunition, reflecting on the impotent futility of human endeavor:

"Ah, shit.  At least I got paid.  ...Whaddya mean the check's in the mail?"


2014 HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN

4 comments:

Mike B. said...

Well hey, the man's gotta eat. And heh, "Colonal," that's too funny. When I saw that, my Halloween 3-addled brain immediately added "Cochran."

Sean Gill said...

Mike,

Oh, I'm not begrudging Iron Mike his paychecks– it's just that the man deserves better. And I appreciate that you're in the spirit of Halloween (III). Have you done your seasonal viewing yet? I may wait till Halloween proper.

Mike B. said...

Seasonal viewing is in full effect indeed! All month long, my background movies have been rotating between Halloweens 1 through 5 (they're all winners, in their own way!), stopping occasionally for viewings of Mark Harmon's "Summer School" (don't judge me!). And, since I never pass up a chance to hold court on "Halloween III," lemme ask you this: I've always thought that the one HUGE plot hole in the movie was, why didn't the robot-icized Ellie stop Tom Atkins BEFORE he destroyed Silver Shamrock? I mean, she was a willing accomplice in his sabotage efforts, and only attacked him after all the damage was done. Now, as a true "Halloween III" apologist, I've always been perfectly happy to look the other way on this, but my question is, what if it's actually explained in there somewhere, and it's not just the product of a lazy script? Am I missing something? Any ideas? This Halloween countdown is awesome, by the way. Thanks!

Sean Gill said...

Mike,

Very nice. I enjoyed SUMMER SCHOOL back when I saw it– I remember that silly gore prank scene being a major setpiece, so it's sorta seasonally appropriate! In regard to the robot Ellie question, that always confused me, too. I'll consider it the next time I watch it (hopefully in a few days). Glad you're enjoyin' the countdown!