Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe

*

Secundus (Sven-Ole Thorsen)

It has been a long, long time since I have seen such a terrible movie. It was so bad that I can only compare it to The Devil’s Rain, which to-date is the only 1 star movie I have seen since 2004. So now that I have explained how bad it is, I should tell you what Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe is.

Per IMDb – (1)An alien “policeman” arrives on Earth (2) to apprehend a renegade of his own race (3) who impregnates a woman (4) with a potentially destructive mutant embryo. Written by N.X.K. emegas@vecanti.org. [Parenthetical #s added]

(1) This “policeman” or “Finder” is Abraxas, played very poorly by the former professional wrestler, Jesse Ventura. He said “Ain’t got time to bleed” in the movie Predator, so I mistakenly thought that meant he could act. (2) The “renegade” is Secundus, which is actually a cool name and portrayed by the toughest mall security guard of all-time, Sven-Ole Thorsen. I could have just referenced Conan: The Barbarian, but Mallrats was the movie I loved first and in it he was La Fors, the head of security. Abraxas and Secundus were partners over 1,000 years ago, when Secundus betrayed the Finders and went to jail. Since then he has escaped repeatedly and murdered tons of living beings. BUT in this Finder code, you cannot kill a Finder, even one who has betrayed and killed other Finders and is literally not a Finder anymore. (3) Secundus lands on earth with Abraxas right behind him and after some fighting puts his hand on the stomach of a woman named Sonia, who is walking in the forest at night. (4) Secundus thereby impregnates Sonia and the Finder commanding officers order Secundus to kill Sonia just in case the baby (called a comater) has special powers. She gives birth, in the forest, a few minutes later because Abraxas doesn’t kill her.

And that is the first five minutes of the movie. The premise is stupid; the acting is bad; the characters have no chemistry; there is inconsistent morality; and the special power Tommy, the comater has is explained in this quote from Secundus,

Almost? Virtually? It’s not enough, when I can have it all! The key is the birth of a comater. The comater will be able to compute the anti-life equation. That child will be a comater. Join me. To stop me now, you have to kill the girl. I know you, you can’t do that.

If “the anti-life equation” sounds familiar, then you are probably a fan of DC Comics. Darkseid was the basis for Marvel’s Thanos. Darkseid uses the anti-life equation by repeating it enough times to enslave people to serve him. This movie didn’t even try to change that! It blatantly and boldly just passes this off as a thing in their universe.

What else is ridiculous in this? Beyond all of the scifi mumbo jumbo, and a crappy appearance by Jim Belushi, I think that Abraxas’ reaction to a topless woman was the worst. In 1,000+ years…not once has he seen a humanoid topless? And he was a virgin too. I wonder if Secundus was a virgin too, or if putting his hand on women’s stomachs qualifies as sex for a Finder.

I could truly go on and on about everything wrong in this film, but I wanted to say at least one nice thing about it. It did a lot of little stunts and practical special effects. At 86 minutes, it is more evidence in support of the 90-minute Crap Barrier in movies. This movie is not “so-funny-it’s good”, so please avoid it.

Ranked – Arnold Schwarzenegger Performances

Before I start, let me brag by saying that I can spelled Schwarzenegger without looking it up. If you want to know how, it’s easy! His name is 2 different German ways of saying Black. Black-and-Racial Slur Black. And now you cannot unsee that.

Arnold has 62 credits—including his uncredited credits, video games, TV—but I have only seen him in 22 movies. Five of those movies I do not remember him in, or he was in so little it should not even count—The Expendables, Around the World in 80 Days, The Rundown, Dave, & The Long Goodbye. As for the other 17, I am going to rank them from worst to best.

T2 3-D: The Battle Across Time – For his performance he gets a D-, for just showing up. For his checkbook and 20+ years of Universal Studios royalties he probably gets an A+.

Conan the Destroyer – Was he that much worse here than in Barbarian, or was the movie just much worse? Maybe the movie was much worse because his character seemed too self-confident and the rest of the movie sucked too? Regardless this movie was very bad and he was very bad in it. D

Commando – Despite pages of one liners, very few of them hit. He was so cheesy in this one. D+

Eraser – Who can forget the tracer bullets? I remember him running to avoid them and thinking that he does not run well. But he was built like a wall, and walls do not run. C-

Twins – Arnold played this one innocently, but not great. Probably would’ve worked better as a Saturday Night Live skit, than 90 minute movie. C-

Junior – This movie was so stupid, but he tried hard. I saw this the same year that I watched, and loved, Ace Ventura and still thought this was a dumb movie. C

Last Action Hero – This should have been his greatest role. A satire of the kind of characters he had made millions playing. Something that doesn’t quite work and with him at the center it’s hard to not think it’s him. C

Red Heat – Arnold with a Russian accent. His face does a good job of acting Russian, in the mold of fellow non-Russian Dolph Lundgren. C+

Terminator 2: Judgment Day – I know that for a lot of people, this is one of the greatest action films of all-time. That Arnold is considered peak level cool at this point. But mostly he was non-expressive and rode a motorcycle. He did everything he needed to do in order to help this movie become a major hit, but it’s not a special performance. B-

The Running Man – I forgot to review this movie, so hopefully I will get around to that soon. From my memory, the physicality involved played well with Schwarzenegger’s strengths. And yes, that is a play on words. B-

The Last Stand – Old man Arnold. The people who made Logan should have watched this for guidance. Or perhaps they did and that’s why Logan wasn’t better. Arnold showed that he still had something left in the tank, as they say in sports clichés, or, cars. B

Kindergarten Cop – What a fun movie. What a collection of great quotes. What an early 1990s comedy. Is his performance secretly an A? Is it really a D? All I know, is that it’s not a tumor. B

Predator – Arnold did something that he rarely did, in this movie. He seemed cool, but then showed a bit of fear. Here he provided the opposite of what his performance did in Commando. I wish I could do a similar list for Jesse Ventura’s career, but really, I just want an excuse to type out “ain’t got time to bleed,” which I have just done. Mission accomplished and I don’t have to watch any awful Jesse Ventura movies. B+

Conan the Barbarian – Unlike in the sequel, Arnold showed how his character could develop and think. His look was the best of his career. Even the way he delivered his lines was pretty good. If only he could’ve laugh more convincingly. B+

True Lies – Best movie of his career. James Cameron used Schwarzenegger’s strongest abilities here: playing the straight man and the man who has had enough. I don’t think that Tom Arnold or Bill Paxton would have registered such good performances without him next to them. His laughing was slightly more convincing here. A-

The Terminator – His cool factor and menace were higher in this low budget original, than in T2. Anyone who could convincingly pull off time travel in the buff deserves credit. And he did so with his first try. The ensuing bar scene where he beat up some guys and took their clothes was top notch. The ability to act without a shred of irony really was a strength in this movie. A-

Total Recall – The most well-rounded performance of his career. He made you care, laugh, and fear him. I went into this movie thinking he would be a joke, but he nailed it. If I could criticize one thing, it would be suffocating and having his head grow larger in the vacuum of space, that could have been slightly more convincing.  A

So there you have it. Is he a great actor? No. Was he a major bankable star? Absolutely. For someone whose acting I have made fun of for years, I sure watched a lot of his movies. Spending time watching a movie is the greatest compliment I can give to an actor, or a director, and I spent a lot of time watching his.

The Lovebirds

***

Two alcohols, please. Thank you so much.

From IMDb – “A couple (Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani) experiences a defining moment in their relationship when they are unintentionally embroiled in a murder mystery.” The movie is light and silly, but Rae and Nanjiani have wonderful chemistry between them…as a couple whose relationship has run its course, and for whom there is more nagging and complaining in their day to day lives than affection. The way they portray emotional baggage is both amusing and realistic. They each boil over when little things happen in a way consistent with people having lived together for a long time.

The premise of the movie touches upon some serious subjects, like murder and how the police will discount the word of people of color in the United State. This is mostly done for establishing a premise off of which Nanjiani and Rae can riff, not as social commentary. At only 86 minutes, it comes in under the crap barrier, so don’t expect high art. Go into this movie with some snacks, a fizzy drink, and just enjoy it.

The Tourist

**

People make fun of The Tourist a lot. Angelina Jolie has a mixed track record, as do Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany, but they are all fantastic actors when given the opportunity to shine. This movie does not give them that opportunity. As was immediately apparent from the first minute of the movie, this was not going to be very good. So I decided to enjoy what I could and record the hilarity that ensued. A warning, I do talk about the end of the film. It is not a spoiler, if the movie cannot be spoiled.

• Angelina Jolie’s Elise is a woman being watched by the Paris police in her very nice apartment.
• These police are well dressed, but awful at their jobs. Here are some steps to being bad surveillers. (1) Park directly in front of her apartment. (2) Follow her at 5 KPH as she walks down the street in your van suspiciously. (3) Know where she was going the whole time and have people waiting there already (this is only dumb because of (2). (4) Speak so loudly into their hidden mic that the waiter thinks they are ordering a drink from three tables away. (5) Have international backup, at Scotland Yard, so at least 8 people are surveilling a woman who is not hiding.
• The villain’s plan involves the police following Elise, which is flawed because we have already seen that they are incompetent.
• Paul Bettany is in this! But Timothy Dalton is doing paperwork at Scotland Yard to show how unimportant inspector Paul Bettany’s is to him. I would be annoyed if this weren’t James Bond doing paperwork!
• I now realize that not everyone remembers Timothy Dalton as James Bond, but I will make sure his photo is on this review so people can potentially recognize him.
• Weird back of the head hair grab into a kiss. It’s like a throwback to a gross era where consent could come from initial physical resistance. Like creepy James Bond (Sean Connery and Roger Moore, not Dalton) stuff.
• Fancy hotel, but the waitstaff is lax enough to let two creepy hitman types get into a guest’s room before the door closes? I’m definitely leaving a bad review on priceline after this. *** tops. Then the front desk treats him like a joke when he reports that two men are trying to kill him. I’m dropping this to **.
• I think I recognize some spots in Venice from Casino Royale!
• Scary Russian mobster, who has no Russian accent because he was actually born in Beverly Hills (Cop), talks about how he doesn’t kill people anymore, but instead hires people to do so. Then, in front of an Italian tailor, commits murder. The tailor offered to leave! He would’ve come back. That casual attitude towards witnesses does not bely someone who runs a multi-billion dollar criminal empire.
• Turns out that Steven Berkoff (mobster) is only surrounded by Russians, not Russian himself. I wonder if they added that in post-production once audiences were like, where the hell is that guy’s Russian accent?
• Angelina Jolie is extremely attractive. So far it’s a highpoint of the film.
• But I’m in love with you. Said after Jolie left. The guy is in shock from almost dying. I hope that’s the rationale for his emotional statement.
• What a swerve! Jolie was a financial cop the whole time! Undercover!
• The movie’s twists keep coming until James Bond shows up to order the snipers to fire and put this movie out of its misery.
• Paul Bettany is a treasure. Angelina Jolie certainly has her moments, but Bettany is the best non-James Bond part of this film.
• Wait a second…if Johnny Depp is actually this megarich guy, what happened to the math teacher whose life he now has. Did he have that guy murdered? The film wants us to believe this is a victimless crime, but probably Depp had the guy killed. Just awful.
• In the end I have not deducted a half star for Depp’s potentially murderous ways, but instead leave the score as is due to the excellent establishing shots of Venice. They are truly the best I have ever seen.