My Stepmother Is An Alien (1988)

Directed by Richard Benjamin, who also happened to act in a number of movies that I have enjoyed over the years, My Stepmother Is An Alien is one of those movies that I always wanted to check out one day. It was never a top priority though, because I assumed it wouldn't be very good. My assumption was correct. This isn't a very good film.

Dan Aykroyd plays Steven Mills, a physicist who manages to send a signal so far into space that it actually, unbeknownst to him, hits and disrupts a distant planet. Believing that this was a deliberate attack, the planet sends Celeste (Kim Basinger) to find Steven, steal his research, and eventually order the destruction of Earth. Celeste ends up becoming romantically involved with Steven, mistakenly thinking that is a good way to achieve her main objective. Steven's young daughter, Jessie (Alyson Hannigan), soon realises that there's something not right, especially when Celeste keeps talking to her bag (voiced by Ann Prentiss), and it looks like there won't be any happy ending for the main characters.

Written by Jerico Stone, Herschel Weingrod, and Timothy Harris, you'd be forgiven for expecting something decent here. Stone would later help to write Matinee, one of many superb Joe Dante movies, and Weingrod and Harris worked together on hits like Trading Places, Brewster's Millions, Twins, and Kindergarten Cop (although they also gave us the less enjoyable Pure Luck). This is not up there with their best work. Although there are a few small chuckles here and there, it is a poor comedy that makes the big mistake of trying to utilise Kim Basinger for both her looks and her comedic skills, the latter of which she simply doesn’t possess.

Benjamin directs with a strangely slapdash approach, hoping that the main premise will be enough to make viewers forget about anything else. Set-pieces are clumsily put together, occasional zingers are thrown into a laugh-sucking vacuum, and, perhaps strangest of all, nobody involved is really allowed to play to their strengths.

Basinger obviously looks beautiful here, and I do enjoy some of her acting work, but she is awful when it comes to trying to play up the comedy. Aykroyd fares better, but his character is so strangely oblivious to madness going on around him that it feels as if he is the punchline to an ongoing joke. The real joy comes from a fun turn from a young Hannigan, who has always been great, and a decent attempt  to keep delivering laughs from Jon Lovitz, playing the brother of the character played by Aykroyd. There is also some fun to had from Joseph Maher, as well as a teeny tiny Seth Green, only onscreen for a minute or so, but downright adorable.

It’s quite easy to see why this was given the green light, considering the concept and the people involved, and it is a shame to see very few people trying to do their best. From the cinematography to the Alan Silvestri score, everything around the central performances feels disappointingly lacklustre. Maybe it’s one to consider for a remake option, considering the massive room for improvement.

4/10

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Prime Time: Rat Race (2001)

With Jerry Zucker in the director's chair and a whole load of talented comedic performers in front of the camera, Rat Race certainly sets itself up as a film that wants to be in the top tier of modern comedies. The fact that it isn't, and the fact that it fails by such a large margin, is as surprising as it is disappointing.

The main premise is very simple, and very similar to another whacky comedy from decades ago, one that made use of an all-star cast. A group of people are selected to participate in a race to a locker some distance away. The first person to get there will get to keep the contents of the locker. $2M. It's that simple. Yes, this is basically a reworking of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

There are moments that work in Rat Race, and some of those moments provide some hearty laughs. Jon Lovitz and Kathy Najimy bundling their two kids into a car that once belonged to Adolf Hitler pans out pretty much as you think it would, and is a real highlight, and there's a fun cameo from Kathy Bates, playing a woman obsessively trying to get people to buy one of her squirrels. A bus full of Lucille Ball fans also provides some fun. But there are so many other moments that either don't work as well as they should or just don't work entirely. The characters played by Seth Green and Vince Vieluf don't work, and neither do those played by Whoopi Goldberg and Lanei Chapman. Breckin Meyer and Amy Smart are helped by the script, although hindered by the fact that they're, well, Breckin Meyer and Amy Smart (to be fair, Meyer isn't as bad as Smart . . . but few actors are). Cuba Gooding Jr. is just fine, as is Rowan Atkinson, and John Cleese is helped along by super-white, larger, teeth to define his character.

Perhaps hampered by the script from Andy Breckman, Zucker feels like he could have been replaced by anyone in the director's chair. There's no sign of someone monitoring quality control, there's no sign of anyone taking on the responsibility to make the best of every comedy moment. All you get is a star vehicle without any big enough stars, but it's also very much a time capsule from 2001. From the cast to the plotting, despite it hewing so close to that 1963 movie mentioned above, and to the inclusion of Smash Mouth in the finale (not just a song, they get to make a cameo appearance and interact with all of the main players).

While it's not a film I'd recommend to anyone in the mood for a modern comedy, it IS a film I'd recommend to anyone looking for some easy entertainment that keeps throwing enough at the wall that one or two bits should stick. You can find a multitude of better comedies out there, but this is for people who want some recognisable faces and a general sense of familiarity (Atkinson, for example, is doing little more than a Mr. Bean act with an accent on top of his usual schtick). Passable enough. Just not often very good.

5/10

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Prime Time: Ticks (1993)

A creature feature about a cast of young people being terrorised by killer beasties, Ticks is a film that doesn't want to do anything more than make viewers tense, and probably a bit itchy. And it succeeds admirably.

A group of troubled teens (well, supposed teens) are taken to a woodland cabin to help them learn how to work together, to take some time to work through their issues, and to generally work on being better young people. There are a couple of social workers in charge, but there are also some drug-growers in the local area, and they have inadvertently increased the size of the local tick population. Ticks aren't nice at the best of times, but they're so much worse when enlarged to the size of tarantulas. Seth Green is the young lead who needs to work hardest to overcome his fears, Alfonso Ribeiro is a muscular young man who goes by the name of 'Panic', and the rest of the cast are a bit less memorable, although that's not to say that there is any issue with their acting.

Directed by Tony Randel, Ticks is a film that makes the most of every aspect, from the decent assembled cast to the impressive practical effects (including makeup effects by the well-known K.N.B. EFX Group). It doesn't need to hide the schlocky entertainment beneath any layers of deep soul-searching or ruminations on the current state of the world, which allows for more scenes that homage Aliens without ever feeling too indebted to it.

The script by Brent V. Friedman is good fun, zipping from one bug-centric moment to the next. Friedman knows the nasty potential of the central idea, and he taps into everything you may want to be presented with in a film about overgrown, deadly ticks. 

As for the cast, nobody embarrasses themselves here. It may be weird to see Ribeiro in a very non-Carlton role (considering he'll now forever be associated with that character from The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air), but he's entertaining, Green is as good as ever, just in a slightly smaller form this time around, and Ami Dolenz and Virginya Keehne have some good moments. Ray Oriel and Dina Dayrit are the two other main teens, they do fine, Rosalind Allen and Peter Scolari are the responsible adults, Barry Lynch and Michael Medeiros are less responsible adults (because they just want their drugs to grow well), and Clint Howard is a poor unfortunate who gets severely ticked off (pun very much intended) throughout the movie.

I'm not sure if we'll ever get the special edition shiny disc release of this film that I've been wanting for years, but I'm glad to see it available online for those who love it, and for those who have yet to give it a watch. The simple title and artwork lets you know what you're going to get, but it's arguably much better than it has any right to be. Especially if your recent experiences with creature features have involved films made by The Asylum (they can be fun, but none of them are as fun as Ticks).

8/10

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Can't Buy Me Love (1987)

Ronald Miller (Patrick Dempsey) is a bit of a nerd in this typical, though enjoyable, teen movie from the '80s. He wants a shot to become popular, and his chance comes along when he spots the lovely Cindy Mancini (Amanda Peterson) in a spot of bother. Ronald can help her out, but he negotiates a deal. He will give Cindy $1000 if she will hang out with him for a month. The two will spend a lot of time at school together, making Ronald popular by association. Cindy doesn't think that the plan will work, but she agrees to the deal. It's not long until the plan DOES start to work, better than either party could have envisioned, and it's not long until Ronald starts to be changed by his experience, abandoning the lad who used to be his best friend (Courtney Gains) in favour of a crowd that feeds the ever-inflating ego he has managed to create.

Throwing in almost every cliche in the teen movie handbook (including, damn, the slow handclap moment), Can't Buy Me Love is a film you can easily choose to hate if you can't watch in the right frame of mind. The script, by Michael Swerdlick, allows everything to play out in a way that can be predicted from the very first scene, yet it's all done with a load of positive energy and just the right amount of sweetness (not the romance stuff, I'm on about the scenes between Dempsey and Gains). Director Steve Rash doesn't do anything special when it comes to the execution of the material, but he does what's needed.

Dempsey is fun in the lead role, transforming from outcast to trendsetter convincingly enough, even if he's saddled with some of those horrendous outfits from the decade that fashion forgot. Peterson is easy to like in her role, and benefits from the fact that her character isn't entirely horrible at the start of the movie anyway - she just moves in different circles to Ronald. Gains has one of his best roles, a nerd who is happy enough to stay in the social position that he's been allocated, and it's the way he is affected by the whole situation that proves to be the most effective part of the movie. Tina Caspary and Darcy DeMoss are both enjoyable enough as, respectively, Barbara and Patty, two friends of Cindy who start to view Ronald in a different light as soon as he moves from geek to chic. Dennis Dugan and Cloyce Morrow play a decent set of parents, and a teeny tiny Seth Green is the standard, irritable young brother. His scenes are all more amusing nowadays, simply because of his teeny tiny Seth Green-ness. Erik Bruskotter, Cort McCown and a bunch of others portray the jocks who end up also warming up to Ronald, and they all do just fine.

Despite the predictability of it all, and the lack of any major sequence to lift it above and beyond the pile of many other teen movies churned out over the years, the winning performances help to make this pleasant enough. It also helps that it has a pretty fantastic soundtrack. There are some bland, standard filler tracks, but then there are tunes like the titular track, of course, "Surfin' Safari", "Secret Agent Man", "Living In A Box", "French Kissing" and "Dancin' With Myself". Keep your ears open for them.

All in all, the movie may not be one to seek out, but it's an amusing diversion. You could do worse.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Buy-Love-Patrick-Dempsey/dp/B000065V3H/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1404965615&sr=1-1&keywords=can%27t+buy+me+love+movie

Sexy Evil Genius (2013)

Sexy Evil Genius is a great title in search of a great movie. The film itself isn't bad, but it's yet another in a long line of movies that isn't quite as cool or funny or hip as its creators would have everyone believed. It's a decent distraction for 90 minutes, but nothing worth revisiting, and certainly not one that will be brought up by film fans reminiscing a few years further down the line.

Seth Green, Harold Perrineau and Michelle Trachtenberg play three people brought together by Katee Sackhoff (playing Nikki Franklyn, the sexy evil genius of the title). They have been asked to wait at a bar at a certain time, and they have all obliged. When Nikki eventually appears she is accompanied by a rude and corrupt lawyer (played by William Baldwin). But, more importantly, she also has a plan. A plan that started falling into place as soon as her friends started to arrive at the bar.

Written by Scott Lew, the premise and pacing of Sexy Evil Genius may appear achingly desperate to be cool, but the dialogue isn't actually all that bad. At least, it's not bad during the first half of the movie with the three strangers getting to know one another. Things take a bit of a dip, however, when Sackhoff appears and Lew seems to free himself from his previous self-restraint, investing the titular character with all of the attitude and soundbites stereotypical of so many other movies that have tried to score themselves lots of cool points. It's clear that Lew cares about his creation, and also clear that he cares about her a bit too much, to the detriment of the others who are simply pawns.

Director Shawn Piller doesn't do a bad job at all, considering that the movie is mainly just a group of people talking to one another around a table in a bar. He doesn't really do much to detract from that fact, but he doesn't make it into a tortuous exercise either.

The casting helps a lot, something I never thought I'd say with Trachtenberg onscreen (I'm not her biggest fan). With so few characters holding the attention of viewers for the duration of the movie, they have to be easy enough to like, and they are. Trachtenberg is just the same as she always is, but that works this time. Perrineau is one cool cat, and Green is, well, he is also the same as he's been a number of times before. Again, no problem as it works here. Baldwin is enjoyably sleazy, and the only real weak acting onscreen comes from Sackhoff, but I'm not sure whether that's her fault, as she breaks out the manic tics and tricks, or perhaps the fault of the writer.

Sexy Evil Genius isn't a complete waste of your time, but it doesn't do enough to stand out from the crowd. You may enjoy it for 90 minutes, but you won't feel as if you've missed out on some gem if you end up never seeing it.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Sexy-Evil-Genius-Michelle-Trachtenberg/dp/B00B1MJNKE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389567774&sr=8-2&keywords=sexy+evil+genius