It came from the bargain bin- 2001: A space travesty

2001 (on the case), but other sources have said it was released in fall of 2000.

The President (a not so great Bill Clinton impersonator) has been kidnapped and cloned. Security force, old dude and clumsy guy Dick Dix (Leslie Nielson) is sent to the planet vegan to put an end to this plot before other world leaders are cloned and controlled. This should lead to espionage hilarity…yeah shoulda woulda coulda. Unfortunately you need a good script or at least a sense of humor to get some laughs. Instead we get lame slapstick, lots of talking, limp gags, weak aliens and a cast who look ashamed to be in this film (and they should be). Dix thinks he got the right president in place when they get back to earth, but of course he didn’t. Nothing else about this film has got right so far so why should this point be any different? Other celebrity look a likes who look very little like their celebrity show up at an event where Dix hopes to get the correct president in place. There’s a struggle and not just me struggling to pay attention to this “movie”. Eventually all is set right or at the very least the film ends…shew…roll the credits…please.

I saw this film back when it first came out on VHS yes VHS. I hated it then, but spent a buck on it at the Dollar Tree the other day.

I liked Nielson in Airplane, Naked Gun, Dracula-dead and loving it and some of his other comedies. However I can safely say this is the worst film I have ever seen him. Not his fault though although he did agree to be in it. It’s like 90 minutes of being subjected to someone who thinks they are the funniest person in the world, but they clearly have no idea how to be funny. They try gags that are sort of like ideas from the Naked Gun films, but they all fall flat in this outing. This is just painful like horribly painful, I felt very bad for Nielson for having to be in this thing. You are a strong person if you make it through this movie, but it will drain the life from you. You have been warned.

Was it worth one dollar? No, it wasn’t.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

2014

This is a story about a courageous female newsperson whose father was in on creating these powerful turtles, she discovers a metallic coated evil dude, she tries to convince her silly co-workers about what is going on but they go on being stupid and….then she. Wait, a turtles movie is supposed to be about the Turtles you know like the title says. However in this version April seems to take priority. Eventually we see the lumpy looking turtles and they do some fighting in between April’s parts. Shredder looks he was built by a bored hardware store employee, but he gives his evil portrayal-wahaha or something. There’s a meany pants scientist in this too and he has some lame brilliant plan that can’t possibly fail-okay of course it fails. The personalities of the turtles are developed more and more as the film progresses…just kidding this is the April show so the turtles just whiz bang in for some brief action here and there. There are some explosions, some fights, some lame jokes and eventually the film ends. Good Lord roll the credits.

The negatives- Megan Fox is on screen way too much and she is awful like make me cringe kind of awful. She seems to think that moving her lips a lot counts as acting-it doesn’t. I knew they changed the turtles origin story and that’s okay, but tying April into it via her dad doesn’t work for me. The Turtles started out okay, but they never really develop their personalities that much. Raphael and Leonardo in particular are left as shadows of the characters we have come to know. The plot and the villains felt poorly planned out. The action was okay, but not enough to make up for the other many shortcomings.

The positives-I thought I’d hate the look of the turtles going into the film, but overall I was okay with it.

As much as I was hoping to find something about this one to like it just had far too many problems. I usually love the turtles in the comics, the cartoons and the previous films. The writers of this one didn’t respect the turtles enough to develop their characters, make them the stars or give them a good story to work around. When you take characters who have been around for awhile you at least to try and understand what it is about those characters that fans have liked for decades and that sure didn’t happen for this film.