Starring: Jesse Ventura, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Marjorie Bransfield   Written and directed by: Damian Lee

The Story:

This movie hurt. It hurt because it was soooo hard to watch. I didn't want to watch it. I've tried before because I've owned the DVD for years. But I always got bored within the first ten minutes and shut it off. That's a cardinal sin for any movie, good or bad...don't be boring! *Sigh*....and the only reason I own this flick is because my wife is from Minnesota and she had to have a movie starring her favorite governor from that state.....Jesse "The Body" Ventura.

Ventura is Abraxas. He's a Finder, an alien from some place out in space that is a member of a Galactic Police Force. A very goofy Galactic Police Force, I might add. The Finders are genetically altered so that they live for thousands of years and are impervious to harm. But Abraxas' former partner, Secundus has gone rogue. He wants to unleash the Anti-Life Equation which in some way will give him God like power. Don't bother trying to figure out how that is or what the Anti-Life equation is because there's no real explanation. At least not one that is going to make any sense. If you think that's goofy enough get the way he plans on accomplishing this plan. He goes to Earth and finds a woman named Sonia and impregnates her. The child will be "The Comator", able to figure out the Anti-Life Equation and give Secundus the power. Yeah, I know what you just read was pretty lame, and its even lamer on film. By the way, impregnating Sonia doesn't require the making of the Beast with Two Backs, either. Secundus just puts his hand on her stomach and whammo! No afterglow or anything. Plus she gives birth only 3 or 4 minutes later. Abraxas catches Secundus shortly after he impregnates Sonia and he is beamed away to a prison planet. (The budget was apparently to bare for even a model spaceship so the aliens travel through Warp tunnels to different planets.)  Abraxas is ordered to terminate Sonia and the child to keep the Anti-Life Equation safe, but he refuses to do it.

Five years later, Sonia is raising her son, Tommy on her own. (Hilariously her parent throw her out because she doesn't know who the father is.) Tommy doesn't speak, which is supposed to make him seem mysterious and alien I guess, but it just made him look retarded to me. Then again, since I'm no fan of children actors I guess its good that he doesn't say anything. Secundus as you can guess breaks out of prison and goes back to Earth to find Tommy and reap his reward. Abraxas is sent after him....again.

Man, this movie seemed to last forever. Its basically a Terminator rip off and its got no where near 2% of the excitement or fun of that movie. We know that no mere Earthling is going to stop Secundus so they're only there to get beaten up by him. Remember in the Terminator, The cyborg killer would dispassionately smoke anyone that got in the way of his objective...in this movie Secundus just beats some guys up, he purposely shoots one bystander in the leg, just out of meanness and doesn't really scare anyone in the audience. Abraxas' presence doesn't make the movie any more thrilling either. Every time he faces Secundus he gets his ass handed to him. Some hero. And that's not the biggest problem with these two. Sven-Ole Thorsen is hard to understand when he speaks his lines so his Secundus is significantly less frightening. Well its that and the fact that he can't really act. Jesse Ventura isn't going to be getting an Academy Award, but he can play a tough guy well enough. (See him in "Predator"). However Abraxas is soft spoken and his dialogue is beyond mind numbing. I can see that Ventura was trying to portray an aloof alien, but it ain't workin'. Abraxas is too subdued to offer any real excitement and the fight scenes are framed in such tight shots you really can't see much anyway.

The fact that the overall plot makes little sense doesn't help. We never learn what the Anti-Life Equation is, or why an Earth woman had to be impregnated to get it. And I sure would have liked to know why the Finders have such stupid rules. A Finder can't be executed even if they go nuts but the Finder bosses think its acceptable to order Abraxas to murder Sonia and Tommy to stop Secundus. This is an interstellar police force? Wouldn't it be easier to just kill Secundus rather than murder innocent people that honestly have no idea what a Comator is. Shit, I watched the movie and  don't know what a Comator is. My guess is the writer doesn't either. He just made it up to sound cool.

This ought to be a lesson for me. I only watched this flick because of the Rogue Reviewers Roundtable and it was an absolutely-at-the-last-minute choice. Next time I'll have my reviews ready ahead of deadlines so I don't have to suffer like this.

Best Lines:  “Can I keep my Answer Box?"- Abraxas when he decides to stay on Earth.

 Are you kidding me?

1.) Waitaminnit....Abraxas bosses say that the Earth is the 4th planet from our sun? Are these guys supposed to galaxy jumping alien super cops? Wouldn't space travel by necessity require mathematical skill? Then why can't they freaking count? Earth is the 3rd planet from the sun, you nincompoop aliens!

2.) Here's a question...if you came home one night and saw the front door of your house bashed in would you just casually walk inside? With your five year old kid?

3.) What was the whole point of the scene in the nudie bar if they weren't going to show any nudity? What a rip off! It was obviously set up that way to give the viewer the idea that there was at least going to be some boobies. Honestly, Secundus had no reason to go to the strip club other than that. He already knew Tommy's name and his mother's name so looking for her randomly in a nudie bar was stupid....for him and for the script.

4.) Secundus is a pretty dumb alien. He threatens to kill all of the children in the school if the people don't bring him "The Comator". Not only is that NOT a word, he should realize that no one on Earth knows what the hell he is talking about. (Yes, I know he eventually says "Bring me the Comator....the boy named Tommy!", but he says "Bring me the Comator!" several times before he mentions the kid's name) Think about it...if you went to some primordial jungle in the Amazon to some tribe that lives like cavemen and said "Bring me a toaster oven!" would you expect them to know what the fuck you were talking about, even if they had a toaster oven?

5.) When the sheriff and his deputy find Secundus and pull their pistols on him, the alien laughs and says that their weapons can't hurt him. Deputy Shoot-em-up then reaches in his jacket and pulls out an Uzi! What the hell!? First of all, are cops even allowed to carry weapons like that around in case someone pisses them off? And why the hell even do it? Just because he said they couldn't hurt him doesn't mean its not true! He might just be a crazy guy that thinks bullets can't hurt him! I'd hate to get a ticket in this town. Tell this cop that you ain't payin' the fine and he'll probably throw a hand grenade in your car!

6.) This is one of the darkest movies I have ever seen. Not only is it pretty boring, the fight scenes are so badly shot and the screen is so dark in most scenes I can't tell what I'm supposed to getting bored....I mean excited at. Screw this, this DVD is starting a new job as a coaster.

Nudity and Sex: None

Huh?:

Did anyone bother to look at the script before they started shooting? Here's a taste of some of the moronic things said....while describing Earth to his superior, one of the finders tells him they are only ahead of Earth civilization by a little bit like in the field of Warp Travel. I would consider the technology to bend time and space for safe travel a bit more than "a little bit" ahead of current Terran science! And hell, these guys can genetically alter people to have steel hard skin and 1000+ year life spans! They don't think this is a significant lead on Earth technology? Um, can we have the Green Lantern Corps protecting us instead of these dopes?

The Finders have some dumb ass rules, and Abraxas himself even highlights this. They have regulations giving Finders....even rogue, dangerous ones like Secundus...immunity to capital punishment. But in order to stop his schemes its okay with them for Abraxas to kill an innocent woman and a newborn child for the greater good. Abraxas hits it on the head when he tells his bosses the problem could have been averted if they had grown the nut sacks to just execute Secundus!
 

Sonia seems to know a lot about Abraxas without any explanation. She knows Abraxas is from Space, even though we never see him tell her that, and she knows he had orders to kill her when Secundus first impregnated her, but there's no reason she should know that. Given the boring voiceovers that provide exposition though, I'm kinda glad they didn't pad out the film giving her the answers.

People are dicks in this movie. Sonia's parents just kick her out with no problem. Her daddy is pissed because she just gave birth and doesn't know who the father is. He doesn't believe her crazy story about Secundus making her pregnant in 5 seconds and the baby popping out 120 seconds later. I can't say I blame him but She wasn't pregnant a few hours ago, Dad! The social worker she talks to is equally unfeeling, and Jim Belushi's principal is clueless. Talk about an idiot world.

The Final Judgment: Man, go rent the Terminator, or even The One instead. As far Guardians of the Universe go I'll stick with Gamera.