Gladiator Cop: The Swordsman II (1995)

Gladiator Cop: The Swordsman II (1995)-* *

Directed by: Nick Rotundo

Starring: Lorenzo Lamas, George Touliatos, Christopher Lee Clements, Garry Robbins, Claire Stansfield, and James Hong




“This is amazing.” - Thug #1








Andrew Garrett is back! Who’s Andrew Garrett? And why is he back? Apparently he’s the Canadian cop played by Lorenzo Lamas who first appeared in The Swordsman (1992). This time around, Andrew is trying to get to the bottom of a missing museum piece, a sword said to have belonged to Alexander the Great. Diabolical museum director - and how often do you get a chance to hear that description of a human being - Chris Kilos (George Touliatos - or is it George Touliatos as Chris Kilos; not really sure) has the sword and does what any rational person would do if they had Alexander the Great’s sword - he gives it to a hulking meathead named Jodar (Clements) so he can win in illegal underground fighting matches that take place in parking lots. 

But when the mysterious fight promoter Parmenion (Hong) enters rival meathead Mongol (Robbins) into the competition, things really heat up because Andrew Garrett must now go undercover and fight him. Also there’s some mumbo-jumbo about how Parmenion and Garrett are reincarnated from past historical figures and Garrett dreams about their historical encounters. What will happen to Jodar and Mongol? Oh yeah, and Andrew Garrett? Find out today, if you can...

The original Night at the Museum (2006), Gladiator Cop - not to be confused with Karate Cop (1991) or Samurai Cop (1989) - is one of those “30% New Footage!” deals, a completely incoherent mishmash of recycled footage from the first movie, cobbled together with some new footage and perhaps some stuff left on the cutting room floor. Odds are it was left on the cutting room floor for a reason, and rehashing and microwaving the blended contents doesn’t necessarily make what you’d call a cohesive film. At least not in the traditional sense of what we’ve come to know that to mean. 

Perhaps the biggest question as to the existence of this thing called GLADIATOR COP: THE SWORDSMAN 2 (which in itself is a pretty big red flag) is...WHY? Was The Swordsman such a huge hit that it demanded a sequel three years later? That all seems weird by today’s standards, but it’s crucial to remember that things were very different in the video store era. People were more willing to take chances. It was probably inexpensive to create this movie, slap a name like Lamas on the box cover, and you might just get a return on a relatively meager investment, what with video stores in full effect around the world. But what exactly is going on?

Evidently the character of the museum director, Chris Kilos, was in the first Swordsman film...and the filmmakers this time around thought, “You know what, let’s tell the continuing story of the museum director. Fans are definitely going to want that.” Then we get to some Lionheart (1990)-inspired parking lot fights, where characters such as Mongol have cartoonishly huge swords and axes. His freakin’ sword is longer than his body height. 

Other fighters have Raphael-style sais or those small crescent weapons on a straight handle. We also get treated to “throwing star vision” so we can know what it would feel like to be flung by, and at, a meathead. 

The fights are announced by an Ernest Borgnine lookalike who speaks not into a microphone, but a small plastic megaphone attached to a rope. His announcements have that fast food drive-thru unintelligible static so you can’t tell what the poor man is saying. But Lamas’ hair remains wildly awesome. So that straightens things out. Much like Lamas might do with his hair.

It seems this movie is fairly comfortable with its incoherence, unlike the first film, which at least tried to be coherent. But this movie is far sillier, which in our book might just make it the superior piece of entertainment, but if the movie had more Lamas (he’s gone for long stretches) and was a little more coherent, it might be better and would appeal to more people. So as a viewer you’re not really hooked in, but you’re not really checked out, you’re kind of left floating in the middle (at least during the less silly scenes). 

So Gladiator Cop: The Swordsman II qualifies as being Grincoherent (which means incoherent in a good way), a term we coined. But while it is Grincoherent to die-hard video junkies like ourselves, to the majority of the viewing populace it will no doubt be confusing and unsatisfying. It all depends on your tolerance for nonsense.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Crackerjack (1994)

Crackerjack (1994)-* * *

Directed by: Michael Mazo

Starring: Thomas Ian Griffith, Nastassja Kinski, Lisa Bunting, George Touliatos, Frank Cassini, Richard Sali, and Christopher Plummer











 

It’s Die Hard (1988) in a hotel! Following in the tradition of “It’s Die Hard in a ______________” (you fill in the blank) movies, Crackerjack has been said to be something of a cross between Die Hard and Cliffhanger (1993), but really it’s much closer to the John McClane side of things.  Thomas Ian Griffith stars as the awesomely-named Jack Wild, a Chicago Cop On The Edge. Does this seem at all familiar yet? His concerned family believes that he is too on the edge for his own good, so his brother Mike Wild (Sali), and his wife and baby all go to the rocky mountains. Why they thought that was a good location remains unknown.

While at a remote mountain hotel, a sinister plot to steal millions of dollars worth of diamonds is spearheaded by the nefarious Ivan Getz (Plummer) and his band of vaguely-European goons. Then they’re going to cause an avalanche to destroy the hotel, again with no rational explanation. Will the unmitigated power of Jack Wild stop the baddies, and romance “Activities Director” K.C. (Kinski) along the way? Just you wait and see!

Actually this movie is not bad at all. It’s professionally made, entertaining, and is able to propel itself along on cliche-power alone. It’s one of the better T.I.G movies we’ve seen to date. He has a great entrance and the movie suffers when he’s not onscreen. T.I.G. is able to win over the audience with his charm, not to mention his fighting ability, and he carries the movie well. You genuinely like Jack Wild. When the classic 90’s baddies are holding the hotel guests hostage and shooting a lot of people and blowing things up, you root for Wild. You can’t ask for more in a movie like this. You’d be surprised how often filmmakers fail at this formula. Luckily, that did not happen here.

As far as Christopher Plummer is concerned, the only question you’ll have is, “why?” How did they get an actor of his caliber to appear in this type of product? I guess it wouldn’t be the first time, as he was in an AIP movie (Firehead, 1991), so this is gold in comparison. An actor’s gotta eat, and they probably told him this was his chance to outdo Alan Rickman, so he went for it. His acting style here seems to be “whisper a lot to seem intense and wear various types of eyewear”. We also felt Robert Davi could have played this role.

Oddly, there are not one, but two Crackerjack sequels, with different actors as different characters in the lead role. Was this movie that successful? We had no idea it made enough money to spawn sequels.  But such is life, and at least this first (and only “true” Crackerjack movie for the fans...just kidding) has plenty of entertaining violence to pass the time. That being said, things ramped up considerably when Crackerjack 2 came on the scene.

Shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Crackerjack might be one of the more watchable Die Hard knockoffs around.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Red Scorpion 2 (1994)

Red Scorpion 2 (1994)-* * *

Directed by: Michael Kennedy

Starring: Matt McColm, Michael Ironside, Jennifer Rubin, Paul Ben-Victor, Réal Andrews, George Touliatos, and John Savage











From the mind of the notorious Jack Abramoff comes...

To stop the evil neo-Nazi Andrew Kendrick (Savage) from taking over the world with the stolen artifact the "Spear Of Destiny", Col. West (Ironside) and Sam Guinness (Rubin) assemble a ragtag team to infiltrate their compound. The leader, a "roguish superagent", is Ben Affleck dead-ringer Nick Stone (McColm). Other team members include:
1. Good ol' boy Billy Ryan (Michael Covert), the sharpshooter,
2. The token computer nerd Vince D'Angelo (Ben-Victor), the irritating "George Costanza" of the group,
3. Token Asian Joe Nakamura,
4. And token black man Winston "Mad Dog" Powell (Andrews). If this were the show "Criminal Minds", he would be the Shemar Moore character. He gets to call the evil skinheads "eggs with legs" and screams loudly every time he fires a machine gun.

They are all under the command of Gregori (Touliatos). They don't need to be, but the movie needed a connection, no matter how tenuous, to the first film. Gregori claims to have trained Nikolai, as played by Dolph Lundgren. Dolph is not in this film. So now they are all in the "Red Scorpion Brigade" and have small scorpion tattoos on their arms. It all Matt McColminates with some shooting and explosions (which they should have just done from minute 1 of the movie, but then there would be no movie).



Will this team be able to work together and infiltrate and dismantle Kendrick's nefarious operation? Could Matt McColm look any MORE like Ben Affleck? Will it be "Armageddon" all over again for our heroes? And what is "Kendrick's Roulette" exactly? Find out today!

Silly fun that is brain-numbingly dumb, Red Scorpion 2 has quite possibly every cliche in action movie history. Stone is going on "one last mission", he jumps from an explosion in slow motion, the unnecessary training sequences (which primarily consist of the team endlessly rock climbing), the old abandoned warehouses, the old, dying master and much much more.



John Savage as Kendrick makes a great bad guy. When he first sees the "Spear Of Destiny" he keeps saying "Ohhhhh" over and over again. He's such an evil Nazi, he has a glove drawer. He has a command center with film of Hitler running on a continuous loop. He also has some great underlings. Mr. Benjamin's only talent is counting in an extremely ominous and strained tone. Hans (of course that's his name), is a weird cross between Dolph Lundgren, Kelsey Grammer as Frasier and David Hyde Pierce as Niles. If you've ever wanted to see a cast member of "Frasier" execute a spin kick, this is the movie for you.

By contrast, McColm as the appropriately-named Stone is about as animated and lively as petrified wood. His "martial arts" consists of clumsily slapping his opponents. Michael Ironside looks really bored and unchallenged by his pat role.

It is insulting to the audience. When we see bad guys getting away, someone says "they're getting away!" When an oil drum with the gigantic letters "GAS" rolls toward our heroes, one of them yells "it's gas!" This can also be seen in Street Fighter (1994) E. Honda says that line and Matt McColm performs a "1000 hand slap" just like Honda and both movies came out the same year. Coincidence? I think not.

Despite the fact that the movie is silly, dumb and cliche-ridden, we loved how funny Red Scorpion 2 is and we had a lot of fun watching it.

Discover the "Spear Of Destiny" tonight with this classic!

Comeuppance Review by: Ty & Brett