The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is an open-world RPG developed by Bethesda Softworks and released in May of 2006, to uproarious applause from the gaming community. It won the Game of the Year award that year from virtually every video game publication from here to Polaris and sold a pretty impressive amount of copies. It's also fucking awful. So awful, in fact, I've decided to divide up my review of it into several chapters. A lot of the issues I'm going to address are inevitably things that plague a lot of open-world RPG's; games I can assure I also hate and have chosen to ignore because everyone doesn't speak so highly of them all the damn time.
The premise of the game is pretty solid: take 2002's genuinely good game The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and move it to a new province in the same world, while modernizing it to compete with other titles being released around the same time. Hell, just reading that, it seems like a pretty good game to me already. The lore is rich and cerebral, and just begs to be fleshed out. Hell, I love reading the in-game books and learning about the wonderfully intriguing fantasy universe Bethesda has cooked up. But evidently, the formula for Morrowind's success was a very finely tuned algorithm that its creators were not actually prepared to alter. The focus on modernization brought us a gross oversimplification of the basic mechanics that made Morrowind great, while keeping all the faults, most of which may have been negligible in 2002 but desperately needed to be updated.
Most people, including the two or three people who read this review, see it as a landmark title with a wide open world in which you are free to do as you please. It's a crazy thing, how people have used the volume of this game to support it. I mean, one hundred gallons of refuse is still refuse. Yes, there is a hell of a lot to do in this game. Yes, you can log hours in Oblivion towards the triple digits without ever touching the main storyline, but it just is beyond me why anyone would ever want to. Sure, the concepts are all pretty cool - the Oblivion gates themselves especially - but the execution is so poor that all you find at the end of these promising subplot rainbows are dog turds. However, like a bird who has never seen the forest, the masses have embraced this plastic wood-grain painted perch as if it were a great oak.
For the first entry in this series, I've decided to focus on the lengthy dungeons that litter the game-world, which all
conform to one of eight or so templates. Clearing dungeons in this game is like leveling up in World of Warcraft
or Runescape. It's a menial task that gets so
boring so fast that it's the type of thing you could probably get paid to do if
you find a client with that kind of expendable budget. A video game
made specifically for pleasure becomes pain, becomes grind, becomes "I
guess I have to do this now." Indeed, the dungeon design itself is reminiscent of an MMO: you go in, you kill everyone, get your loot, and get the fuck out. It's like they didn't even realize they were designing a single player game which can have cinematic moments and unique motivations for your actions.
I CAN'T WAIT TO KILL ALL THOSE BANDITS
You'll clear caverns full of enemies with
no real identity, for no real purpose, with the exception of a few fetch
quests sprinkled among them here and there. Often, the dungeons have no
discernible boss monster, and I'm usually pretty unclear on my
motivation to clear these places in the first place other than the
abstract notion that I'll be rewarded for purging them of life. It's
action without proper motivation; essentially a twisted Michael
Bay-esque vision of dungeoneering. Truly, there are few saving graces
here, and any dungeon that an NPC didn't send you into to retrieve a conveniently local item of great importance can usually be
bypassed, since nothing of any note will happen to you there. This is a
problem with a lot of modern RPG's (I MEAN IT'S A ROLE PLAYING GAME I
WANT TO GET INTO CHARACTER AND BE MOTIVATED TO DO THE THINGS I DO WHAT
THE FUCK), but it is especially prevalent in Oblivion.
Seeing an undiscovered
dungeon on your mini-map while traveling between any two settlements is a
pretty common occurrence, and will undoubtedly happen several times
during any journey. At first the fact that there is so much exploring to
do might even excite you, but soon after venturing in one or two of
these places, it begins to take its toll on your very being. An inner
dialogue which goes something like this is inevitable:
"Ayleid ruins. It must have been pretty hard to make something so cool so fucking boring" ??
"Hm.
Another Ayleid ruin. An ancient city, lost to time. Could be cool.
Maybe it won't be exactly like all the other ones. It probably is
though. Man fuck that, I'm gonna keep walking. Wait, what if there is
some powerful-ass item in there? Shit, I guess I have to go clear it
now. Man, fuck this."
Let's take the Oblivion Gates for example, possibly the most repetitive dungeon ever conceived. Suddenly, portals to another dimension full of evil demon-like spirits and creatures open up all over the game-world of Tamriel, and it's up to you to travel to each one, cross the white fog, and destroy the mechanisms anchoring the gates to our world. At first glance, these Gates shine as a beacon of hope; they are dungeons which I have actual motivation to enter and clear. Something I can get excited about and feel like a real hero for delving into. The concept is rad, admittedly, and the first time you find one of the torture towers behind a gate, or explore one of the procedurally generated caves beneath the Oblivion lava wastes, or climb to the top of a Sigil Stone keep and cut the tie that binds the gate to Tamriel, you are pretty pumped. You fight evil creatures surrounded by hellfire as you ascend dark spires that are very much reminiscent of Sauron's tower in Peter Jackson's film adaptations of the Lord of the Rings novels. As you exit the realm, having experienced this new wonder, and loaded up with your new enchanted items, you feel like you just had a pretty great adventure.
What the fuck is this thing? How do you know what to do with it? UNIMPORTANT DETAILS
Then comes the second gate... and the third... and the fourth... and so on. In total there are sixteen gates in the game, and all of them are practically identical. The format is much like the other dungeon types of the game - each has a few neat set pieces which are semi-randomly plopped throughout a procedurally generated hole where your happiness goes to die. The emotional climax of the Oblivion gate concept was reached at the end of your first gate, and there are fifteen left in the game. It didn't have to be that way, but it is. The mythical Plane of Oblivion has been reduced to another tired dungeon template - something you will see so much of in this game you'll start to feel like it's a chore.
It's the same damn story with all of the dungeon types. It's like, you have all these dungeons full of enemies to clear with neat items, but what's the point? So I can use those neat items to go clear more dungeons with the same set pieces and eerily similar corridors full of the same tired enemies? Where's the pizazz? Sure, it would have been a pretty big task to have a game this large with dungeons that are all exciting and neat - and that's a big part of why I think this game shouldn't have been so big. After clearing the hundredth cave full of bandits (also, it's a little odd that the bandit population in Cyrodil is exponentially larger than the population of NPC's you can actually speak to), this magical sword of whatever no longer appeals to me. Why should I care about getting new shit if all I am going to use it for is to kill more bandits in the one hundred and first cave? I mean, it'd be one thing if the combat in this game was any good, but it's not. The engine is complete shit and - bleh, I don't want to get ahead of myself here, I'll get to that in due time.
The lighting engine in the caves is pretty neat though.
Next week, Chapter 2: How to Praise Pagan Gods Further from the Road
I normally only review comically absurd or low budget things, but this time I've made an exception, because What's New, Scooby-Doo? is the worst thing in the entire fucking universe. I've probably said that about a lot of things before in my life, but dear Lucifer on ice, this one really is it.
Let's talk for a minute about Scooby-Doo. The first time the world saw him in his current form was in the 1969 series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, a show so awesome it doesn't even matter that the exclamation point in the title may have been misplaced. Hell, one could make an argument that this was all part of the silliness of the show, but regardless of if it was an honest mistake or an inside joke, it's excused because again, the show is awesome. What makes this show so special? Well, that's pretty simple. Let's take a look at the other Hanna Barbera shows that were on television around the same time as the release of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: Looney Tunes, Wacky Races (and the spinoffs, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and Dastardly and Mutley in Their Flying Machines), Top Cat, Johnny Quest, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, and The Flinstones. Other than Johnny Quest, those are all comedy shows without much depth or atmosphere to them. None of those shows really ever have any serious issues on them, or any dark tones or implications. What made Scooby-Doo so special when he first showed up on the scene was that his show was dark, it had mysteries, and most of all, it had fear. It was of course, still a comedy show - it even had the laughtracks so prevalent in cartoons at the time - but there was danger, and sometimes the images we saw were frightening and unsettling. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, was dark, but not in that overstated, "I'm the god damn Batman!" way everything seems to be these days. It was a show that didn't try to be dark, because it didn't have to; it was thick with atmosphere and unsettling imagery. It was evident from the swelling of the music and the frightening monsters that this show took itself seriously, but then from the jokes and cartoon physics that it also had plenty of levity to it as well.
Of course, following the outrageous success of that program, Hanna Barbera released tons of copy-cats: Jabberjaw, Josie and the Pussycats, Goober and the Ghostchasers, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Clue Club, Speed Buggy, and the Funky Phantom. Those shows vary in terrible-ness, but they teach us something, so turn on your learnin' receptors and prepare to engage learn mode: kids aren't fucking stupid. That's right! Despite what the producers of every shitty cartoon out there seem to think, shows for kids can be dark and feature the fun of having being scared to death just like shows for adults, and they can do it without being heavy-handed or forgetting they are a silly cartoon. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! paved the way for generations of western animation, a children's comedy show which featured mysteries rife with red herrings and villains who were downright scary. It was all about creating a comedy show that everyone can enjoy, but putting it in a dark and sinister atmosphere where the audience can be thrilled (and chilled) by scary and frightening shit.
So, what happened? Well, somewhere through the 7 incarnations of Scooby-Doo that were in-between the release of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and What's New Scooby-Doo?, the darkness was lost. It's hard to say exactly where the show stopped being atmospheric or compelling on a primal level, but it's easy to say one thing: this latest series is way the fuck passed that point. This show always takes place during the daytime, the sun is always shining... it's just too god damn bright. Hell, even the Zombie Island movie got this part better than What's New Scooby-Doo?, at least that movie created a scary and dark setting for Scooby and the gang to solve the mystery in, with macabre imagery recurring heavily.
The most basic element of what made Scooby-Doo scary was the atmosphere, but the thing that really helped push it over the top was the villains. Scooby-Doo has always been a comedy series, but when the bad guys showed up, shit got real for a minute. Do you remember how you felt the first time you saw this?
if this is the first time you have seen this fuck you
Your whole world was turned upside down. "Woah! That wasn't like other cartoons at all, that just scared me! That was exciting!" These monsters had a whole fucking feel to them, they had some character and dammit, they looked evil. You had the Space Kook, that evil clown that hypnotized you, the Creeper, the Witch and her Zombie, the Black Knight, pirate ghosts, the Witch Doctor, Miner 49er, those terrible chained phantoms, a crazed robot, and an evil Yeti monster with evil-looking horns. In the new series, you have two episodes about a snow creature, and the first one sort of looks evil but the second one is just basically that stupid Jack Frost movie monster. There's a ton of episodes about boring normal ghosts with no cool gimmicks like the Miner or the pirate ghosts. Worst of all, there's episodes with no monsters at all, including one about the Mystery Machine getting possessed, one about a mysterious disease spreading in animals at the safari, and one about Shaggy growing into a giant (I shit you not).
I know at some point in this wall of text you're expecting me to disparage the theme song for the new series by pop-rock band Simple Plan. This music simply isn't my taste, but that doesn't mean it's bad (I imagine it's Simple Plan's best song); it ain't like any of the other Scooby-Doo theme songs have really been my cup of tea either. One thing that does bring to mind though is the visible degradation of the celebrity cameos. In the old series, you had guests like Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller, the Globetrotters, and fucking Batman and Robin. You know what you get in the new series? ryan sheckler.
So what does this all amount to? What is the crux of the argument here? What makes this new incarnation of Scooby-Doo the worst thing in the whole fucking universe? It completely lacks the atmosphere of the original show; a show that was all about atmosphere.
I've always been fascinated by comics and sequential art, but until recently, never took the time to get into it. It's been one of those things I've looked at for a long time as something I might enjoy, yet I just never got around to really fleshing out the interest. Now, at the ripe old age of 18, I've finally managed to buy a handful of comics, all discounted. Predictably, my love for the absurd, the obscure, and the surreal has carried over. While I was shopping for comics I bought about 15 #1 issues for strange and unheard of heroes, most of them published by comic book companies which are also strange and unheard of. For the benefit of mankind and to get my jollies, I've decided to review them, and the first comic in the stack is Stealth Squad.
Stealth Squad tells the story of "A TIME OF GREAT DARKNESS IN AMERICA" where everyone is dying from a horrible blood disease. Apparently, one man found a cure for the disease called "ENERGIZED BLOOD." Everyone was cured, and a few people got super powers. The government assembled them together to form a super secret "ELITE STRIKEFORCE" known as the Stealth Squad. At least, that's what the first page says. Look, I'm gonna be honest with you, I haven't read very many comic books, but I have read enough books to know that the exposition to this comic is clumsy and haphazard. We're told as an audience that "energized blood" saved the human race from a horrible disease... and that's it. We're told nothing else about the "energized blood" in the whole comic, despite the fact that according to the 1st page it has everything to do with why there are super heroes (and why the human race didn't go extinct). It doesn't tell you what it is, how it's made, or anything like that. Now that I think about it, it doesn't even give a name to the god damn disease that got cured. Also... there... are.. so... many... ellipses. The first page contains five two-to-three sentence paragraphs, each one containing ellipses, the last one containing four.
The comic begins at a warehouse in Colorado Springs, which an omniscient narrator tells us in the first panel is a secret government armory that houses experimental "SUPERWEAPONS." There are US Army men patrolling the perimeter of the building, all dressed in desert camouflage to blend in with the harsh environment of Colorado Springs.
Suddenly the warehouse is attacked by a group of metal-armored high-tech Master Chiefs, who call themselves "STRIKEFORCE CHAMPION."
I know that sounds completely stupid, and to a lot of people I know things like this represent what helped create the notorious Dark Age; I know that to many people this kind of heavy-handed and overstated "this book is super extreme!!!" thing is the absolute epitome of bad writing in comic books. I promise though, "Stealth Squad," as innocent as it seems a name in theory, it turns out to be much, much more stupid than Strikeforce Champion in practice; I'll touch on that a bit more at the end of the comic.
Strikeforce Champion breaks into the warehouse, and using some kind of small metal balls that they throw at people when they forget they have guns, takes out all guards.
Naturally Stealth Squad received word of this operation (probably from the writer of the comic) and arrives to intercept it, flying to the scene in the Blackbird from X-Men.
One of the lackeys of Stikeforce Champion remarks to his commanding officer that their unit is "an unbeatable fighting force" for no apparent reason, and somebody off panel says, "Ooh, I love a confident man!!" This incredibly clever retort is of course the note our heroes have entered on, and on the next page we get to turn the comic on its side for a landscape spread of the titular squad.
The sinister Mr.Champion watches the events unfold from his control chamber full of monitors and high tech computer equipment. He tells the Squad Leader of Strikeforce Champion that "SANCTION RED" is authorized, and to terminate the Stealth Squad with "extreme prejudice". In the next panel, a soldier who is clearly not the same guy that was the squad leader a page ago repeats the order to his squad, and the Strikeforce, presumably just now realized they had guns again, all open fire into nowhere with all the extreme prejudice of that scene of Predator. In the action-packed fight scene that follows we are introduced to the members of the team.
Fire Flare, who can fly and shoot fire at her enemies, and... uh... she's angry?
Solar Blade, who creates weird fire blade things on her hands and cuts people with them.
Swoop, who has... super speed or something, I'm not really sure. The comic never really makes it completely clear. It does show us he also likes to throw metal balls though.
Kid Mammoth, who appears to be a child horribly mutated into a Hulk-sized powerhouse who kills and destroys without discretion or understanding, a surprisingly dark turn for the comic.
War Bird, who uh... uses mechanical wings to fly. I thought this was supposed to be people who received super powers from energized blood, and yet this person doesn't seem to have any superpowers at all.
Finally, the leader of the team, Stealth One. Stealth One is a martial arts expert who also appears to have no super powers whatsoever, but does have an awesome costume. I admit, I actually picked this comic up out of the bargain bin because of how cool he looks.
(You may have noticed I didn't talk about their character traits or personalities, and that's because none of them have any.)
So, the team ignores the gunfire and clobbers the bad guys, escapes from the warehouse, all the while bickering like children and being extremely unlikeable. They exit to find that emergency personnel and camera teams from the local news station are outside. The team attempts to get by them without being bothered, but Stealth One is accosted by a police officer who says he knew the "blood stuff," would come to no good, presumably referring to that energized blood that gave (some of) the team super powers. Either this guy was largely unaffected by the dark age in America where a virulent blood disease ran rampant, or the writer just already forgot about that. Stealth One blows him off and heads on his way, with the rest of the team, back to the Blackbird (to return it before Professor X notices it's gone, presumably). Back at Headquarters, Stealth One (who we learn is actually named Stephen Choi, despite the fact that he does not appear to be of Asian descent) is called upon WITH A VENGEANCE by someone off panel.
as in "I ain't slept in days ya'll I'm fittin to be tied"
This super serious yelling turns out to be from General Hampton, who is infuriated that the team was captured by camera crews (as if the public now knows everything about the team when all they saw was costumed dudes leaving a warehouse). This confrontation turns out to be completely non-consequential, as Stephen Choi basically tells the General "whatever, we're public now," and the General says, "yeah, guess so bro," and on the next page, boom, press conference, and the General is explaining what the Stealth Squad is to everyone publicly, even though they probably could have easily not done that if it was so important to the General that they stay a secret. Honestly, the news cameras only filmed a bunch of costumed fucks coming out of a building and leaving, and it probably would have been relatively simple for the government to weasel out of a public admission that they had a team of super heroes, if that was really what they wanted to do.
So, Strikeforce Champion has been placed under arrest and is being transported to prison after receiving their sentences. Apparently the police figured it would be best to transport all the convicts that made up a combat team at once, together. War Bird is monitoring the situation, but suddenly a disc flies into the scene and releases gas, which causes all the officers to cough and choke violently while having no effect at all on the members of Strikeforce Champion, despite the fact that they aren't wearing any breathing apparatuses. In fact, we learn that the gas unlocks their handcuffs, which I'm sure made a lot of sense in somebody's head. War Bird carries the officers coughing to safety, and then turns to see that Strikeforce Champion has received an upgrade from the armor they had a couple days ago, and gets her ass handed to her. She's almost beaten but then BOOM FULL PAGE SPREAD OF THE STEALTH SQUAD.
Jesus, I can't even tell who's supposed to be talking in this mess. Are they all saying "STEALTH SQUAD?" Because it looks like a god damn cloud is saying it. Who is saying the other things? Would it have really been that hard to draw the speech bubbles so I can tell who is talking? And why is Kid Mammoth a demon?
So, the Squad gets into a fight which is actually pretty suspenseful and intriguing, and for a moment, as a reader, I feel myself caring what happens, and start rooting for the Stealth Squad. Against all my expectations, they get their asses kicked and all of them are captured except the unconscious Stealth One. Why? YOU COULDN'T AT LEAST CHECK? YOU COULDN'T AT LEAST CHECK IF THEIR LEADER WAS DEAD? ARE YOU IN THAT MUCH A OF A GOD DAMN HURRY THAT YOU CAN'T CHECK IF THEIR LEADER IS DEAD?
The comic closes with "Stealth One to the rescue??? Nuff said!!" and beneath that, it names a Bible verse. II Corinthians, 12: 9-10. I took the liberty of looking that up to see how it relates to all this.
"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
Oh, it doesn't. Should have seen that coming.
So that's issue #1 of Stealth Squad, the biggest misnomer in the history of history. There's absolutely no reason for this team to be called Stealth Squad. They aren't stealthy, and the way they bicker like little kids, they are barely a fucking squad. On their very first mission they bust into a warehouse and then blow their way out, attracting the attention of everyone in the country, and the man who evidently organized the whole deal, General Hampton, comes out in a press conference right after and spills the beans on the whole damn thing. At the end of the comic they battle Strikeforce Champion a second time in the middle of the god damn street, while news crews capture everything. I get it, that's fine, they get to act like that, they are super heroes. I don't expect super heroes to be particularly stealthy normally, but doesn't being called Stealth Squad kind of imply your modus operandi involves some degree of stealth?
Stealth Squad is a very ambitious comic with a lot of neat ideas and concepts buried under piles of hackneyed writing and fairly bad art; there's just so much poor craftsmanship here, it reeks to high heaven. The worst part is, I really tried to like this book, just because of how cool Stealth One looks, but I just could not bring myself to do it... and... I... counted... forty-six... ellipses... in... this... twenty-five... page... comic. Rest assured, there are some treasures to be found in the bargain bin - and I will review some of those in the future - but you can pass this one up.
As far back as I can remember, I have been interested in Greek mythology; while everyone around me always seemed to be checking out teen dramas or vampires or whatever from the school libraries we were forced to use, I always checked out nonfiction books on Greek mythology, or translations of fantastic tales like the Illiad or Jason's Golden Fleece. These stories have always filled me with awe, and there is a part of me, admittedly, that still has trouble admitting that these stories are fictional. Indeed, you could say these ancient myths have had a big impact on me. One of my favorite recurring themes in Greek Mythology is that of redemption, and in few other myths is redemption featured more heavily than in that of Hercules.
Hercules was the illegitimate child of Zeus, ruler of the Greek pantheon of gods. He was hated and cursed by Zeus's wife Hera, doomed in all his wanderings to be mired by darkness and pain. But Hercules was a man of strong constitution, and a man who valued a challenge. After being cursed by Hera and murdering his family, he was condemned a ruthless killer, but he redeemed himself through completing trials given to him by his father, Zeus. Like most of these Greek stories, the hero we follow is one with many tragic flaws, but a man of good intentions. A man of perseverance, and the will to make a change for the better; a man who believes in the concept of redemption, and is strong enough to pursue it.
I've been aware of the live action Hercules: The Legendary Journeys television series for quite some time, and when I spotted the Season 1 DVD box set on the ground in my friend's apartment, I knew I was destined to watch it. I checked the back of the box for a synopsis, and it said that the first few discs included contained five movies as part of the Hercules ACTION PACK. I looked it up on the internet, and apparently the ACTION PACK was a promotional term for a group of five made-for-television movies which actually preceded the TV series. To think, five movies about my favorite Greek hero, called the ACTION PACK. Anyone who has read my Yor, the Hunter from the Future review knows I love a good action flick with some beef cake (and boy does this movie have beef cake). So, as a fan of the concept and of the protagonist, it seemed like an obvious choice to dive right in.
I was so naive.
The first of the films is Hercules and the Amazon Women. This movie is the "action packed" account of Hercules being captured by brutal Amazonian women and over what feels like several hours, coming to terms with his feminine side and how sometimes boys cry too. I'm not going to guide you through this movie scene-by-scene making wisecracks like a written Mystery Science Theater, which is what I did with my review of Yor, the Hunter from the Future. The reason it worked for that movie adequately was that its script had events and happenings;in Hercules and the Amazon Women, there are no events, and there are no happenings. I swear on Steven Seagal's career as a policeman that if I gave you an in depth play-by-play of this movie, your brain would beat the shit out of the inside of your skull trying to escape. As a matter of fact, when I finished this movie, if it wasn't for the fact that I could feel I had sustained significant brain damage, it would have been hard to discern if I had even seen a movie at all. I'll sum up the plot of this movie in one, long paragraph, because I really just want to get the mess out of the way. There's obviously going to be some spoilers (as if anybody cares).
Okay, so Hercules's best friend is getting married. His mom washes his feet, and the seeds of the contrived feminist . Hercules and his mother visit his friend, they eat some soup, his friend's fiancee is a poor cook. A man signals for Hercules out the window, they go to meet him at the door, and he says his village needs their help. He follows them back to their village, and is told that a beast comes from across the river and attacks their village regularly. Hercules and his friend go to investigate, are attacked by Amazon women, the friend dies, Hercules cries and is captured, and is brought shirtless and glistening through the Amazon village. The leader of the Amazon women has a long discussion with Hercules that last like 45 minutes about how he is from an ignorant sexist culture, and instead of being a clever commentary on our own terribly sexist culture, it forgoes all that kind of subtle satire to make a movie entirely based on how the most broad and childish sexist stereotypes are wrong (I'll expand on that a bit later, believe me). Anyway, we find out the Amazons are the beasts, and the attack is that they come to the male village across the river and have sex for the purpose of procreation. The men counteract this by being nice and sitting the Amazon's down to tea, serenading them with songs, and generally just being pussies. For a second things go bad again when Hera takes control of the Amazon queen, but then everything is okay when Hercules travels back in time and fixes everything by spreading the message of feminism.
So in case anybody forgot, this movie was the first in a promotional package of movies called the ACTION PACK, and if my synopsis didn't outline it well enough for you, this movie has no action. In fact, it seems the biggest problem with this movie is that it's probably the most boring piece of shit I've ever forced myself to sit through. The entire focus of this movie lies not with the amazing adventures of a warrior, or the rich mythological base upon which it was constructed, but with elementary feminist messages so transparent and obvious I wonder why this movie wasn't called "Hercules and the Women Who Could Wear Pants." I have nothing against feminism, but if you're going to make it the focus of a Hercules film, you had better make it a complex and unique enough message to justify the fact that he's not bashing skulls through the whole movie.
We learn through many poorly setup and completely ridiculous flashbacks that Hercules has been raised since he was a boy to believe that feelings are bad, and that only women have them - this is a part of the original Hercules narrative I must have missed. In fact, in the old Hercules stories, his emotions (especially his anger) usually factored pretty heavily in how he handled things. It's as if somebody warped a character who has existed for millennia just to help convey a boneheaded "water-is-wet, girls-can-play-kickball-too," message. I have no idea who the target audience of this film is supposed to be. It's advertised as a crazy mythological bloodbath, but what takes place is hours of awkward dialogue, beating the most obvious message of equal rights for women into the viewer.
You know what? I know who this movie is for. It's for fucking idiots. This movie is for fucking idiots. Only a fucking idiot would watch this movie and feel it is justified in its existence. Only a fucking idiot would not be offended by how stupid this script thinks you are. Every little thing in this movie is spelled out for you in the most wordy and awkward means available, breaking the golden rule of film: show, don't tell. Schoolhouse Rock had more subtlety than this. Sitting through this movie is like watching a public service announcement.
Of course, there's a romance subplot in there, in which Hercules falls madly in love with the queen of the Amazons, she falls in love with him, and the audience is left wondering if there was a deleted scene somewhere. For a movie that likes to spell everything out for its audience, it doesn't spend a lot of time explaining why these two people would enjoy spending time together, or why Hercules goes from being a single Conan the Barbarian type he was at the beginning to being a hopeless romantic by the end of the movie.
Look, if you ever find yourself alone in a room with a a television, a DVD player, and a copy of this movie, snap the disc in half and cut your jugular.
...
Yes, I'm going to watch and review the other four movies in the series.
It truly pains me to say I never got to experience the 80's.
Indeed, the 80's were a time when men were men, and action movies were still relevant and homoerotic. A homosexual man could literally jerk one off to all the best action movies, and that's because they starred men like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, shirtless and beating the fuck out of other shirtless ripply men. But when you couldn't afford Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger to be a shirtless fuck beater with an awkward accent, you had to turn to the to poor man's shirtless fuck beaters with awkward accents, and in the 80's, the poor man's shirtless fuck beaters with awkward accents were Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren.
Jean-Claude looks like he's a pretty awesome guy and Dolph totally looks like the second Super Saiyan form of Billy Idol, but I assure you, you will very rarely hear of either of these guys outside of a movie that wasn't universally panned by everyone who saw it. Still, somehow they continued to be relatively famous - I'll get to what it's relative to in a minute, I promise - and it could cost you a lot of money to hire them. Hell, I wanted to hire Dolph for a public appearance and this site says it'll cost me $5,000 minimum (people who want to get me something special make note of this). So, where do you turn when you can't afford the B-movie stars?
That's right, you turn to Billy Idol's first Super Saiyain form:
The unsung hero of bad ass low budget action movies filled with ridiculous concepts, foreign screenwriters, and stock footage. The man never made it into mainstream movies, probably because he didn't have an awkward accent, but he certainly did manage to land roles in some of the most interesting and absurd non-pornographic films conceivable. His acting in Yor, the Hunter from the Future is significantly understated compared to his other films, as most of them feature scenes of him being completely buttfuck insane and yelling nonsense... but of course, I wouldn't want to give anything away.
So, dear reader, let us open and sniff the empty Slim Jim can of low budget 80's action together, as we dive into the prehistoric futuristic world of Yor, the Hunter from the Future.
Before we even start this movie, I want to note that it's never a good sign when your lead actor is out of costume on the DVD cover.
Reb has long hair in this movie and looks at least ten years younger than this. Just something I couldn't help but notice.
Our journey begins with our hero Yor hiking (walking briskly) through some mountains (medium height rocky outcrops) set to a lively pop tune someone was nice enough to write for the movie. Truly, the song defies all explanation, so I'll just let you listen in before I analyze what's going on.
I wanted to analyze the lyrics but found it pretty impossible to tell what they were or if this song was even in English, so I had to ask the internet:
Yor's World! He's the man! Yor's World! He's the man! Lost in the world of past, in the echo of ancient blast. There is a man of future, a man of mystery. No tribe to lead the way, in his search for a yesterday. Misty illusions hiding, his famous destiny.
Yor, the touch of fire. Yor the proud and free desire. He never sees the sun, he's always on the run, him and his days are gone. They say he will go on, his search goes on and on. Yor's World! He's forsaken the name! Yor's World! And the world was like fire!
He's gonna make all the wild things look tame tonight, in his fight! Yor's World, he's the man! Yor's World, he's the man!
Yor's World! He's forsaken the name! Yor's World! And the world was like fire! Yor's World! On the sun there's a soul! Yor's World! And the world was like fire! Yor's World! He's forsaken the name! Yor's World! And the world was like fire!
Okay, so let's recap. Here's what we know about Yor so far from the opening scene of this movie, with zero events or dialogue to expound anything:
1. Yor owns the world. 2. Yor is the man. 3. Yor is lost in the world of past. 4. Yor is a man of future. 5. Yor is a man of mystery. 6. Yor has no tribe to lead the way. 7. Yor is searching for a yesterday. 8. Yor has a famous destiny and it is hidden by misty illusions. 9. Yor does not see the sun. 10. Yor is always on the run. 11. Yor's days are gone. 12. Yor's search goes on and on. 13. Yor has forsaken the name. 14. Yor is going to make all the wild things look tame tonight in his fight.
Noted. So the song ends on the word "fire" and the first scene of the film after the opening credits shows us... a torch. Very clever, movie. A group of tribesman is surrounding the fire thanking their gods for reaching fertile ground by picking up their children and hoisting them up in the air. I like where this is going, I'm already hooked!
We cut to an old man and a young woman, in traditional caveman rags, hunting in the woods with sticks with nooses on the end. The first thing I notice is that the old man appears to be someone who lives outdoors, covered in dirt and grime and generally sweaty, while the young woman looks prepped for a photo shoot. Immediately, I tried to fill in the blanks here. Maybe the old man is dirty because he's a man, and the women of these kinds of tribes don't do a lot of manual labor. One would imagine they mostly just have sex and give birth. But of course, that explanation doesn't work because the scene features the woman as being integral to the hunt. And even if all the women did was fuck and give birth, if they were fucking men like this guy, they would be dirty and grimy like this guy. So I guess we're going to sacrifice continuity for the sake of fan service.
The woman and the old man spot an appetizing baby triceratops in the brush, digging a hole, and the woman uses her amazing dog-catcher rod on it to wrap a loop of rope around its neck. Just when it seems all will be well and the tribe will have a bountiful feast of triceratops baby, a gigantic triceratops appears quite literally out of nowhere, presumably to defend her young. Helpless against the savage herbivore, the woman and the man grovel in fear until the hero of our movie, the mighty Yor, jumps in between them and the beast, entering the film with a, "YAAA LEAVE IT TO ME!" He proceeds to make that wild thing look tame tonight (in his fight) and stabs it in the face until it dies. Naturally, this draws quite the crowd and the whole tribe gathers around Yor. There are certainly ways I could convey to you how odd the part immediately following this is in writing, but after giving the matter a lot of thought, I decided that its bizarre brand of "what the fuck," could probably be better demonstrated by showing it to you in .gif form:
So after doing that - which I'm forced to assume he did out of jubilation for the delicious treat to come - he cuts open the beast and begins to drink its blood, because of course, "The blood of your enemies makes you stronger. heavymetalbill" The old man says he would rather stay weak, and thanks Yor for saving the girl. We learn her name is Ka-laa, and that the old man's name is Pag (for the record, I did have to look up how to spell both of those), and he has watched over Ka-laa since the death of her father. Pag remarks on Yor's gold medallion, and asks about its origins; of course, Yor has no idea where he got it, and he'll be damned if he's going to sacrifice the convenience of this plot to explain how the fuck that came to be. Suddenly an old guy that looks a lot like Gandalf and/or Dumbledore (I'll call him Gumbledorf) decides to interject that he has seen a medallion like this before, and that it was on a woman who lives among the desert people and, why the hell not, is the daughter of the gods. Next there is a short scene of Yor eating among the tribe while Ka-laa dances and makes extended eye contact with him, while some hairy purple-tinted morlock-men kill the village sentries and prepare to invade.
Ka-laa walks over and tells Yor how different he is from other men she's seen, an observation she will be repeating many times throughout the film. Quite suddenly and jarringly we see the leader of the hairy purple-tinted morlock-men watching from the darkness, and he commands a legion of hairy purple-tinted morlock-men to "kill 'em" with an unfathomably shitty audio dub. The morlock-men flood into the village while some kickass Star Wars-like orchestration kicks in. The leader of the morlocks commands them to kill all the men, and capture the women. After an odd fighting scene in which Yor hits several men with the blade of an axe that affects people like a blunt instrument, Yor knocks over the torch from the opening scene and lights the entire village on fire, because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Ka-laa screams Yor's name, fearing for his safety; apparently disregarding that she just met him, that her village and presumably her family is under attack, and that he just lit fire to everything. After that Yor flees the village with Ka-laa and Pag in tow, as the morlocks make off with all the village womenfolk. After getting a safe distance, Yor tells Pag he should go back to the village and check for survivors, and meet he and Ka-laa later at his cave. Damn what a player. I know where this is going.
So Pag goes back to the village to find the only survivor is Gumbledorf, and he is swiftly fading. Pag kneels down next to him, and Gumbledorf tells him that he should go with Yor, for that is where his future lies. Before he can explain how the hell he gathered that information, or how he managed to divulge all of it without opening his mouth, he dies.
After a padded and boring scene in which Yor and Ka-laa make conversation about how Yor is a man of mystery searching for a yesterday, Pag arrives at Yor's cave to find it empty. Yor and Ka-laa have gone for a little stroll, and from the ridge Pag sees them get attacked by... more morlocks! Yor is hit on the back by one of them, and he falls over on the ground, presumably unconscious. The morlock takes his medallion, and takes the woman for himself for the purpose of human sacrifice, as "the Gods must be appeased with fresh blood heavymetalbill" and orders two of his subordinates to stay behind and throw Yor off the cliff that this scene evidently takes place next to. Apparently taking a nap up until this point, Pag shoots one of the morlocks with an arrow, which causes it to spontaneously launch off the cliff. The other one manages to toss Yor off before running away. Next we're treated to a very pointless scene of morlocks eating large chicken legs and chasing captured women around their morlock cave with no real agenda.
Our hero wakes up, surviving a cliff drop that it was implied would be of a fatal height (otherwise, why would the morlock-men have bothered to throw him off instead of just smashing his unconscious face in?). Evidently being limp worked to his advantage, as he sustained no visible injuries, and climbs his ass right back up that cliff. To the film's credit, an obvious effort was made to compensate for how shitass absurd that is by having Reb put on his best "I think it might not have been a fart!" face while he does it. Once he reaches the top, he immediately lays down, either to get some rest or because he suddenly remembered he was thrown off a cliff. Pag rushes to his side, leaving me insatiably curious as to what exactly he was doing while Yor was unconscious, and for that matter, how long he was even unconscious for. The time of day hasn't changed and since Pag would have a lot of unaccounted dicking around time if we accepted Yor was unconscious for any significant span here, we're forced to assume that he wasn't, and he is actually Wolverine.
So he retracts his claws, and Pag tells him that the law of the land dictates that Ka-laa now belongs to the morlocks, for they defeated Yor in battle. Yor says TO HELL WITH PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE, LET'S GO RUSTLE UP SOME CATTLES. Then the camera zooms in way too close on Pag's face and he says "That way," indicating the direction of the morlock cave, information he ascertained in a scene I must have missed. This gesture seems like an odd leap in the conversation, and Pag was pretty easily convinced to forget about his laws and help Yor, wouldn't you say? Oh well! The duo aways!
We cut to the morlocks, who are determining who will get to keep Ka-laa as a mate by fighting to the death (which does not tie in very well with that "fresh blood" part from earlier, but whatever, guess we are going to ignore that). Pag and Yor have made their way to a ridge overlooking the scene, and then suddenly they are attacked by a Cliff Racer!
Pag warns, "A creature of the night! Stay low!"
Yor basically says "fuck that shit," and takes hold of the bow, taking the creature of the night down with a single arrow. The beast falls to the ground and... wait... what?
Oh man... you guys aren't even trying anymore are you? This early in the movie and you're going to pull this on me. Look at this thing. Can this even be considered a prop? Does this even count as a device of the film makers? I like to imagine the scenario that resulted in this scene went something like this: "We have to make a prop that can glide through the air. This is gonna be tough. Any suggestions?" "Let's make a kite! Kites glide through the air!" "Kites do glide through the air, but won't that make the scene where it falls to the ground make it look unsettling, stiff, fake, and terrible? Maybe we should design two separate props, or just come up with another method for filming this." "HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SHUT UP IDIOT. YOU'RE FIRED."
So anyway, back to the movie. Yor clubs a sentry above the cave to death with a club that he obtained off-screen. Meanwhile, the morlocks have decided a winner, but Ka-laa refuses his advances, so he smacks her in the face, and then... Yor hang glides into the cave using the corpse of the Cliff Racer, while the chorus from his theme song plays briefly.
Yor kicks some ass while some music that would probably fit a lot better in a military movie starts up. He grabs Ka-laa and makes his way around the cave until he locates a dam built at the bottom of one of the tunnels, which he of course, breaks. This of course floods the cave and drowns everyone inside it, including the captive villagers, in a rather drawn out and dramatic scene saturated with shrieks and cries of death. What a hero!
The trio is then shown hiking through the mountains (all wearing fur coats now!) while a pretty sweet orchestrated version of the film's theme plays, and Pag warns Yor that they are near the land of the Sand People, who worship the fire gods. Ka-laa then tells Yor that he shouldn't venture to find the daughter of the gods because she fears only bad things can come of it because of a dream she had and because she totes jealous. Yor says TO HELL WITH PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE, LET'S GO RUSTLE UP SOME CATTLES.
After walking for a bit Yor is attacked by men with flaming branches and napalm bombs, which they brandish at him until eventually deciding to (unconvincingly) capture him in a net. The daughter of the gods calls out "BRING HIM TO ME," and without further ado Yor is guided to her, and sees her medallion, identical to his. She explains to Yor that she also does not know, and she is not truly a goddess, but arrived in a time before her memory with several similar bodies frozen in ice. She also explains that those bodies frozen in ice is the desert people's main source of water (okay), her name is Roah, and that the Sand People believe in sacrificing all outsiders in order to sway the gods to stop the poisonous vapors coming up from the ground. Yor says they must escape and find the origin of their people, which I kind of figured was implied at this point. The desert people come in to sacrifice Yor, grabbing him by the arms and bringing him to an altar. If this movie has any degree of consistency, sacrificing to the gods actually means to make someone into a sex slave (since that's what the morlocks meant by it, apparently), and Yor won't have any of that business. He suddenly breaks free after exchanging some completely opaque expressions with Roah, and he kicks everyone's collective ass and makes off with her. They rendezvous with Pag and Ka-laa, and Ka-laa sees Yor carrying the other woman, looks jealous, signaling the beginning of a boring love-triangle subplot.
Later, we see the party has made camp. Ka-laa asks Roah who she is, to which she does not respond. Instead, we cut to Pag making a raft with Yor, saying, "We're going to need a lot more hemp before we're through." You said it buddy. They all sail down the river on the raft, and then suddenly we cut to Yor and Rhoa alone on the banks (this movie has a habit of completely forgoing the overrated idea of transitions). They exchange some deep and romantic dialogue in which she tells him she loves him like no other man before (which isn't very remarkable since we already know the only men she has any recollection of knowing are mute Sand People) and kisses him. Then, we go back to Pag and Ka-laa sitting by the fire. Pag explains that Ka-laa has no reason to be jealous for among their people a man has many wives. Ka-laa says TO HELL WITH PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE, LET'S GO RUSTLE UP SOME CATTLES and attacks the other woman with a knife (no really). Evidently, the morlock who won Ka-laa earlier is watching from the darkness, having somehow survived the flood. He starts laughing and Yor rushes to the scene, beating a lot more morlock ass, and executing another one of his signature drop kicks from a ridge, but without the corpse this time. Roah is clubbed in the head, and after Yor throws the morlock off a cliff (poetic justice?) he finds her dying on the ground. She says that suddenly, and for no reason at all, she remembers their race comes from a mysterious island, and she also suddenly and for no reason at all feels that Ka-laa should have her medallion despite the fact that Ka-laa just went stab-crazy. Roah says something that sounds an awful lot like, "kiss me awkwardly," which Yor indeed does, and then she dies. Kind of seems like they squeezed in this character's relevance and importance to affairs in the last few seconds of her life.
The original trio arrives at a beach, where the orchestration of the theme plays again. They set up another camp, (even though we have to yet to see any scenes that take place during the night) cook some fish over a fire, and then suddenly hear a roar and a woman screaming coming from a cave behind the beach! Yor tells Ka-laa to stay the fuck put (which she doesn't even pretend she's going to do), and they rush to the scene to find an odd dinosaur with a huge fin on its back attacking a young women and two children. In a shameless repeat of the scene from the beginning of the film, which was barely interesting to see the first time, they brutalize and kill the creature by basically hacking and slashing at its face in a manner that makes you think some action RPG video game developer made this part. After saving the family, they follow the family to their village. Yor observes their guards on the outskirts and asks, why the are watching the sky, to which one of the children replies far too abruptly "THEY ARE WATCHING FOR THE GODS."
Yor is told now by her father that now the woman he saved is his property, and he respectfully declines. One might assume its because that the last girl he was in love with just died, but he actually says its because Ka-laa is his woman, a development that happened quite alarmingly suddenly with no exposition whatsoever.
The man from the village explains to Yor (for some reason) that a strange object fell from the sky recently in the village, and they go take a look at it. The object is a little device that sort of looks like a headlight, and after deciding it is of no interest, they leave it be. Yor is told they have prepared a feast in his honor, and they go off to eat in a pretty inconsequential scene. Afterwards, Pag goes to look at the strange object, and it starts making some odd beeping noises reminiscent of a keyboard trying to sound like a theremin, and suddenly the village is bombarded with... lasers.
Yor, Ka-laa, and Pag run back to the object, and we discover it is a radio of some sort, and we hear some voice reporting "mission completed." Yor picks it up, calls it a DAMN TALKING BOX and then throws it down on the ground in disgust. The trio makes use of one of the village's boats to search for the island of Yor's origin. The boat is destroyed in a storm, but they all Yor coincidentally washes up on the shore of the island he was searching for, alone. Next, we see a dark room with columns, in which a hooded man (who is horrendously over-acting) is looking into a crystal ball at the scene unfolding. He sends a robot to investigate Yor's arrival, and before even stopping to think "whoa what is this thing," Yor knocks its head off with a rock. He is surrounded by more robots, who arrive from no where, and all simultaneously fire their lasers at him, something that apparently has the effect of knocking him unconscious.
A robotic voice tells the hooded man that there are two more intruders, and it also refers to him by the name that we'll come to know him as, Overlord. He sees in his super crystal future ball that Ka-laa and Pag have also coincidentally washed up on shore here somehow (together even), and demands they both be captured alive.
The pair see an ominous door begin to open on the side of the beach-side facility and take refuge behind some rocks, when a hand reaches out from a crevice and pulls them inside. The hand belongs to a pale faced man with slicked back blond hair, who explains to him that he is a friend and is completely trustworthy, which they accept without question.
Next, we see a blond woman hand a computer chip to one of the robots in a white operating room of some sorts, a scene which shows us that their hands are basically two-pronged claws.
This completely confounds me, because if you were really going to design a multipurpose robot, and you could give it any apparatus to use as a hand that you wanted, why the hell give it this? The robots have normal-shaped robotic hands on their other arms with normal shaped robot fingers, so what is the possible reason or advantage behind designing a fucking robot with this bullshit claw? What the fuck can this claw do that a hand can't? Maybe if it was a real claw that could fucking CLAW things but it can't even FUCKING CLAW THINGS.
An odd tube thing is uncovered from Yor, which automatically wakes him up. The blond woman tells him that she is a friend, that her name is Ena, that this is the land that he left as a child, that only the Overlord can release him, and that his medallion is actually a record of his life. She says his name is Galahad, and he is the son of the rebel Asgard, and that his he came to live in the outside world because his father was banished, and their ship was destroyed.
Okay, wait, what. This movie is called Yor, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE. It says on the back of the box he is trapped in prehistoric times. HE ISN'T EVEN FROM THE FUTURE? The story is he is an escaped rebel from a high technology island?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH
Next we see Yor watching videos of himself as a child while Ena provides commentary, and then the Overlord interrupts, commanding that Yor be freed. Yor is released from the table, and Ena leaves the chamber, but remains outside to eavesdrop. Yor and the Overlord exchange small-talk, and the Overlord explains that since he saw that Ka-laa had a medallion when she arrived on the beach, he will see what can be analyzed from it, and then kill Pag. Yor, super inconspicuously, leaves the room. The Overlord opts to ignore this (for plot convenience, I guess?), laughs, and disappears in midair.
Pag and Ka-laa discover that the blond man is part of underground secret society that is made up of the survivors of an atomic blast. Ka-laa runs away to go find Yor, and the leader of the society explains to Pag that now that the son of Asgard has returned, they will rise up against the Overlord. Next, we see the Overlord watching Ka-laa and Yor in his crystal ball, wandering aimlessly through his facility (the boundaries of his magic vision are never fully explained, if you were wondering) Ka-laa finds herself in a room of mirrors, which causes her to scream because HOLY CRAP MIRRORS OH NO and Yor hears her through the corridors and comes a-runnin. He finds her in the room, but they have a laughably hard time finding each other. I know the room is lined with mirrors, but come on, there is no god damn way it is this hard to fucking find someone.
After some inexplicable confusion, they finally grab hold of each other, and journey through the corridors back to the white operating room Yor awoke in, where he intends to show Ka-laa his past on the video screen. But the Overlord will have none of it. He comes in and explains to them (for some reason) his ultimate evil scheme, which is to use the genetic material of Yor and Ka-laa to produce a new "race" of androids to replace all humans on the planet (I guess it's earth?) and to replace his current androids which he considers "slow-witted." Not sure if the genetic material of these two is the best to turn to, but whatever.
He says Yor must inseminate Ka-laa, and then DIE. Yor and Ka-laa apparently agree to this with no contest, as next they are lying down on the operating tables, preparing for whatever odd procedure this movie had in mind for the insemination, when suddenly the rebels break in, lasers a-blastin, and the Overlord disappears again. Ena releases Yor and Ka-laa from their weird stasis (the nature of which is never explained) and more robot ass is beat.
THE TIME FOR THE REBELLION IS UPON US!! DAMN THE OVERLORD!! VIVA LA REVOLUCION####
Ena tells Yor that they are going to destroy the facility, and that he alone is responsible for carrying on their culture to the mainland, which doesn't seem a contrived way to bloat our protagonist's importance at all. Yor dive-rolls on the ground and grabs a laser, and begins shooting at robots, since apparently he knows how to use those now. Yor makes his way to the main reactor thing, but the Overlord retracts the bridge across the molten-whatever pit that it is (for some reason) held over. Yor takes the bomb and swings across on a wire that is conveniently hanging from the ceiling, but then realizes he's trapped when he sets the bomb on the other side. He tells the others to go on without him, and Pag says "hell nah!" and wraps his legs around the wire, swings over, and picks up Yor fucking trapeze style while hell yeah, the chorus from the theme song plays again.
The Overlord tries to run away, but Yor corners him with a laser, which he discards in the spirit of fairness. Suddenly, the Overlord reveals his ultimate superpower we've been waiting to see this whole time, the reason he's the Overlord:
He raises up his hand and attacks Yor with... a bright light of some sort? Yor is stunned (he forgot to cover his eyes I guess) and the Overlord runs into an elevator to make his escape, but Yor impales him with a stick before the elevator starts moving, breaking it off in his torso. The team rushes to escape, and now even Pag is using lasers, which makes no sense at all, but whatever. Pag volunteers to cover the escape of the others, but is cornered by robots, and then suddenly, they all shut down, for reasons apparently related to the bomb which has still not exploded.
But wait, the Overlord has almost dragged his crippled ass back to his control panel. It's never explained how, but we learn that from there he can reverse everything our heroes have done and save his island! Could their efforts be for nothing? The explosion begins, and the Overlord dies in the heart of the island, feet away from his control panel. It's not really clear if it's from the stick in his torso or if it's related to the explosion.
Our heroes find a jet, an excellent means of escape, if they only had a pilot with them.
Wait? What? They can operate the jet!? How? You better explain this shit, movie. You better explain to me how they are flying this thing right now. Fucking anything.
Flying into the sunset... a narrator wrapping up and saying they lived happily ever after... wait. Are you seriously not going to explain how they're flying this thing to us at all?
