Suspect Device (1995)

Suspect Device (1995)

Directed by: Rick Jacobson

Starring: C. Thomas Howell, Stacey Travis, Jed Allan

This movie is really stupid, but it has one of my favorite stupid sci-fi ideas in it ever. You see, the main character has been genetically engineered to be half-human, half-NUCLEAR BOMB. They used bomb DNA, I guess. Love it.

Anyway, that’s just the big reveal at the end. For the first half of the movie, our main character thinks he’s a normal guy who none of his friends apparently know anymore, and also he’s being hunted down by the government. It turns out he’s this half-bomb guy who had false memories implanted, and then… the movie kinda gives up and has him as a full-on robot (complete with heads-up display, which I guess he never noticed before) fighting off these other robot bomb guys.

Seriously, the second half of the movie is almost totally different in every way. As soon as he finds out he’s half-bomb (tee hee) he gets all badass robot on us, out of fucking NOWHERE. As if the half-man half-bomb thing wasn’t stupid enough…

Highlander: Endgame (2000)

Highlander: Endgame (2000)

Directed by: Douglas Aarniokoski

Starring: Christopher Lambert, Adrian Paul, Bruce Payne

Highlander: Endgame is kind of the Star Trek: Generations of the Highlander franchise. Okay, there’s no “kind of” about it, that’s exactly what it is. There were three movies with Connor MacLeod before this, and I believe the TV series (with Duncan MacLeod) had ended by this point. Christopher Lambert was getting old (not a very good thing for an immortal to do), so they decided to switch over to Duncan.

Duncan and Connor (who are cousins or something. IMMORTAL cousins) have to fight a super killing machine immortal guy who’s killed more immortals than the both of them combined. So… Duncan kills Connor to gain his power, then fights the bad guy. I’m sure Christopher Lambert was very relieved to not have to be an immortal swordfighter anymore.

This movie isn’t all that bad. I mean, it’s got some decent action sequences to it, mostly because Adrian Paul is actually able to perform some sword-related choreography without looking ridiculous. His accent may be just as hilariously not-Scottish, but whatever, at least he’s better than Lambert.

Highlander 2: The Quickening (1991)

Highlander 2: The Quickening (1991)

Directed by: Russell Mulcahy

Starring: Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madsen

Ugghhhh. Highlander 2 is one of the worst sequels to an established franchise ever. Hell, it’s just one of the worst movies of all time, this thing is bad. I have no idea how the franchise survived after this bomb. Well, okay, I do know… they just pretended it never happened.

Remember at the end of Highlander when Connor MacLeod killed the only other surviving immortal and won “the prize”, which was apparently the ability to hear every person’s thoughts in the world? Well, it’s forty years later and it turns out the prize was to grow old and die instead, unless more people from the Highlander planet come down to Earth, then he’s immortal again. Oh yeah, they’re aliens, by the way. And Sean Connery comes back to life, for absolutely no reason. And even though they were born at different times and different places on Earth, they were all exiled from this Highlander planet at one point. Uggghhhhhhh.

Okay, so everything we learned in the first movie was wrong, basically, fine. Add on top of that a really lame sci-fi plot about MacLeod inventing a shield around the world that fixed the ozone layer (topical!), but which shrouded the world in darkness, which somehow causes everybody to think that they’re in Mad Max. AND the main plot is that Michael Ironside, the evil alien leader of the Highlander planet, comes down to Earth to kill Connor… even though he was going to die anyway.

This movie is so, so, so bad. If it was a stand-alone movie, it’d be really bad, but as a “sequel” to an all-right movie, it’s just goddamn terrible. If one can judge such things, I’d say that this is the worst movie Sean Connery’s ever been in. Yeah, worse than Zardoz and Dragonheart and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen PUT TOGETHER. It’s very, very, very bad. Never watch this movie.

When Time Expires (1997)

When Time Expires (1997)

Directed by: David Bourla

Starring: Richard Grieco, Cynthia Geary, Mark Hamill

I think I must’ve gotten a copy of every single movie Mark Hamill was ever in back in high school, because he just keeps showing up on these old tapes. I guess I thought it was funny that he was in so many terrible movies or something.

When Time Expires is about a time cop who’s tasked with putting a quarter in a parking meter at an exact time. If he doesn’t, then a really stupid chain of events will occur that will cause a nuclear war or something. He falls in love with a girl he shouldn’t and has to fight off guys who want to stop him from putting a quarter in the machine and… God, what a stupid movie.

While this movie doesn’t technically deal with time travel (the time cop guys are just from another planet and have advanced machines that can predict what will happen), it’s the same sort of spirit, and it’s handled just as poorly as most time travel movies are. Therefore, I hate it and it should be destroyed.

Yesterday’s Target (1996)

Yesterday’s Target (1996)

Directed by: Barry Samson

Starring: Daniel Baldwin, Stacy Haiduk, T.K. Carter

Yesterday’s Target finally combines the two greatest villain actors of our time into a crack villain team: Malcolm McDowell and LeVar Burton! EVIL BUDDIES 4-EVAH!

The plot is complicated and non-linear, but the basic idea is that these people came back in time to make some change or other, but they all lost their memories. Also, they all have psychic or telekinetic powers of some sort. And Daniel Baldwin is their cunning leader.

Time travel movies are awful, as everybody knows. What people don’t know is that LeVar Burton looks pretty good in a cowboy hat. He should’ve done that on Next Generation, it really would’ve brought the character of Geordi together. I don’t have anything to actually say about this movie, because it was really stupid and chock full o’ time travel, so I’ll just leave you with the thought of LeVar Burton in a hat. Good night.