Starring:

Starring: Mario Van Peebles, Patsy Kensit, Bruce Payne

Directed by: Anthony Hickox    Written By: Richard Christian Matheson, Michael Reaves

The Story: My wife, Mrs. Dante, can't stand Mario Van Peebles. I don't know why...she doesn't have a reason for it. At least not one she's told me. I'm on the fence when it comes to Mr. Van Peebles. I don't dislike him (I've never met the guy) nor am I a big fan. I'm also in the middle when it comes to Bruce Payne. I don't dislike seeing him in a movie....but usually that's a sign that the movie is going to suck. Hey, it might sound harsh, but he was pretty lackluster in Warlock III, Dungeons and Dragons was a steaming pile of Orc turds, and he almost put me into a coma in Highlander: Endgame. With a record like that he's gonna start having to pay me to see his movies.

Van Peebles is LA detective Max Dire (oh, brother....why not just name him John Bloodstone, or Frank Dread, or Lancelot Knight....) a cop on the edge. Aren't they all? Max is supposed to be serious hard-ass cop, but he comes off more or less like a serious prick. His marriage to Anna is falling apart, and Max admits its because of him. The usual "The stuff I see in the streets" gag. Max also has an unfortunate turn when his partner, Jimmy is shot up while trying to stop a hostage situation. I should point out that when we first meet Max and Jimmy tells him he's about to marry his girlfriend and he's going to retire. A sure sign that those bullets already have Jimmy's name on them. Hell, Max should have saved the script some paper and shot Jimmy himself when he said that. Jim is rushed to ICU and the situation looks dire for him. (Dire...get it...the heroes name is Max DIRE...uh...oh, forget it) But miraculously Jim shows up for work the next day, hale and hardy. Max is perplexed but not as much as he should be. Especially when Jim suddenly becomes Super-Cop and mutilates some drive-by shooters later in the day. Still, Max isn't as perplexed as he ought to be after seeing his partner leap over friggin' 15 foot walls and survive a burning motorcycle crash. He doesn't even look that broken up when Jim shows up at the local bar hang out for cops and kills himself via a pistol in the gob. (using a sliver bullet)

All of this didn't go unnoticed by Adam Garou, a detective that works with cops on the edge and supposedly molds and uses them in a special task force. Garou talks Max into attending a meeting with him and the other edgy cops, Perez, Liza, Casey and Doug. That's when Max finds out that Garou is giving them all some kind of drug that makes them turn into psuedo-werewolves. He witnesses the team going out and slaughtering a group of criminals in the name of justice. When Max tries to tell the police chief its pretty much dismissed. The chief tells him that Garou has requested that Max be put on his team and that he shouldn't report what he's seen. No wonder crime is such a problem. Here's the chief of police telling a cop not to report fifty or so cold blooded executions by other cops. Who's the mayor of LA? The Punisher?

Casey tries to get Max to be a part of the pack...but Max won't take the drug. So she screws him. He still won't do it. So she shoots him, then forcibly injects him with the drug, which not only saves her a murder rap by healing Max in seconds, it makes him decide to go with her to bust up a crack house in Wolf man-mode. (incidentally, when Max and Casey are doin' it Doggy-Dog style, Casey begins to change into wolf-woman, sprouting claws and fangs...Max doesn't notice this? He must really be concentrating....I mean I know most men try to think of baseball and stuff, but...)

The crack house they busted up and some of the other illegal endeavors Garou has squashed are run by a crime lord named Teague, and Mr. Teague is getting tired of his men being ripped to shreds by Garou. However Teague doesn't know Garou and his squad are practically indestructible, so his attempts to kill them only piss Garou off. Max then meets Tom Davies....a transient locked up in the police station. Davies looks awful and tells Max why. Garou has worked in Miami, Dallas, Detroit and probably other places, assembling teams of cops and cleaning up the streets. He gets results, even the chief of police admits that...but according to Davies, each time Garou cleans up a city he's the only one of his team to survive. Davies is from Miami ands claims that Garou killed his team there, but he managed to make it out alive. Now all he wants to do is kill Garou for changing him into a monster. He doesn't get the chance because Garou interrupts this little meeting and kills Davies on the spot.

Finally getting a clue that something is amiss, Max does some research and snooping around. He finds that Garou's drug is addictive, and that Garou is, as Davies said, the only member of the teams he assembles to survive each time. Okay, that much is too much. If Garou is some kind of super-duper specialist (According to Casey he's not only a detective, he's a skilled biochemist! And he fights crime!) how could the fact that he gets a lot of people killed in each city go unnoticed by the police of all people!? Maybe they just ain't as smart as Max since Max is the first to discover that Garou is really a werewolf and his drug is taken directly from his own brain! Of course letting the others in on this only gets Doug killed and Casey too, eventually.

Max finally tries to stop Garou himself, armed with a silver bullet. Which doesn't work. Because its a full eclipse and Garou tells him that a full eclipse protect him from harm, even from silver. The big question is how is that so? I don't care whether or not if that is truly werewolf lore. what I care about is that Max and Garou have their showdown at night. How the f*** can there be an eclipse AT NIGHT!? they even show a shadow across the moon. What freakin' shadow is that? The Sun's? It was at this point I started to question the scientific achievements of man. What good are they if even one person sees this movie and believes that a lunar eclipse at night causes a big round shadow on the moon? My head hurts. Man, I'd love for Liz at And You Call Yourself a Scientist to explain this to me. Really.

Its downhill from here, my droogies. Garou morphs into a really fake man in a wolf suit and is of course, defeated by Max when the eclipse passes. They even show the shadow pass from the moon. WHAT THE HELL IS CASTING THAT SHADOW!? Dying, Garou passes his power on to Max....who by the movies end is back with his wife...who is a werewolf too, now, I guess (don't ask...really, don't) and continues in Garou's work.

Hmmmm...I've never heard of it and I'm not sure about it, but maybe sometimes the Earth cause an eclipse effect on the moon....maybe. But I doubt it. I know I'm inviting a gazillion email explanations, but if I'm wrong in this, tell me. I just don't see how there can be an eclipse at night...and if there is a such animal, how or why would it affect werewolves. Besides, you'd think if there is such a thing they'd bother to take a minute or so and explain it in the movie as to not confuse the viewer. All in all, Full Eclipse was a little boring. The action wasn't all that exciting and the acting was nothing to write home about. The only person that seemed to put an effort into at all was Patsy Kensit, and she wasn't even that good. Still, she was the only thing worth watching in the movie and that's only because she's a hot babe. Its too bad, because the premise was pretty interesting. It reminded me of that TV show Forever Knight. I have actually never seen an episode of that, but from what I understand it was about a vampire that becomes a cop, using his powers to fight crime. Corny as that sounds I'll bet it was better than Full Eclipse.

Best Lines:  “I'm a cop, baby...its what I do.” -Max to his wife during a counseling session. With dialogue like that this is gonna be a long ass  movie.

 “So do I get in the club now, or do I have to [unwrite] a cadaver or something?” -Max cracks wise to Garou and his group.

"This is my brain....this is you on my brain. Any questions?"- Garou when Max discovers his secret.

 Are you kidding me?

1.) Wow....Max is all heart. his partner is in critical condition after being machine gunned to ribbons...a circumstance that you could blame on Max if you want to go there....and the poor man's fiancée says "It's not fair, Max.". What words of comfort does Max give the woman? "Its never fair.". Thank you, Mr. Sensitive. I'm sure those are the words I want to hear when someone I love is dying. Jerk.

2.) This guy is a detective....No, no, no! By the Hoary Hosts of the Abyss, NO! Jimmy comes back to work the day after being blasted by half a dozen bullets all fit as a fiddle and Max, while mildly shocked, isn't all that surprised. Plus the next scene we have is Jimmy complaining about his donuts not having enough sugar in them. Excuse me, but didn't we already establish that Jimmy is a diabetic? Doesn't Max think this is a little strange? Hey, I'm no detective and I'm admittedly pretty thick at times, but alarm bells would be going off if I were Max. Let alone the hospital staff....even if Jimmy healed that rapidly you'd think they'd want to keep him around to find out how! The guy was on life support for the love of Pete!

3.) Wouldn't the entire back of Jim's head be blown to itty bitty chunks when he puts his gun in his mouth and fires?

4.) Are things that rough in LA? Garou, Max and the rest of the team walk into the police station wearing burned and torn uniforms and they hardly register a second glance from the assembled cops and civilians. These people are jaded....you'd think they'd at least ask what happened, especially after Garou drops the twisted and burnt steeling wheel of their now-blown-up-real-good vehicle on the desk sergeant's table. Remind me not to visit Los Angeles.....you can shot near to death or blown up in a truck and no one gives it nary a thought.

5.) Speaking of being jaded, riddle me this....Detective Tom Davies explains to Max what Garou did to him in a jail cell. He says that if you take too much of the drug you can't go back to being normal, and by Davies appearance, that's true....he's in some kind of half lycanthrope condition. But before Max can get more information out of him, Garou walks in and shoots Davies stone dead. First of all, everyone else that Garou has gotten hooked on the drug recovers from gunshot wounds almost instantly. (Is Garou using silver bullets? Unlikely....and I'm not about to start making up explanations for the movie) Secondly, Davies appears normal in his now-stone-dead form. How'd that happen if he can't change back? And now for the jaded part....the guards rush into the holding area and shout "Guns aren't allowed in here!". But Garou lies and says he had to shoot because Davies was attacking Max (Max goes in with him on the lie) but that doesn't excuse the fact that he wasn't supposed to have a gun there in the first place.....and the guards BUY IT! Are the police that jaded or incompetent that a guy like Garou...who isn't completely trusted...can walk into a holding cell, gun down an unarmed prisoner and walk out with absolutely no consequences?

6.) A few years ago I was lucky enough to be in Germany during a total eclipse. Its an eerie yet powerful experience. Max investigates Garou's past and says that each time he's cleaned up a city....Miami, Dallas, Detroit...Max names them...there was a full eclipse. You know, I've been around for three decades plus some and I can only recall seeing two eclipses....I'm no astronomer, but I didn't know they happened so frequently.

Nudity and Sex: A female cadaver is seen nude...Max and Casey do it, but no nudity is shown.

Huh?:

You know, if I went to a marriage counselor or a psychiatrist and they were chain smoking during our session I'd have a problem with it. Isn't that kind of unprofessional?

Let me see if I got this right....Max and Jimmy have been partners for over ten years and Max forgets the guy is a diabetic? And doesn't know the name of the dude's fiancée or even that they're decided to tie the knot? You gotta be pulling my Infernal leg. I work with guys that have only known me for 1 year and know more about me than that, just from basic conversation!

Tell me that no one reported seeing Jimmy making 20 foot vertical leaps and jumping around like Spider-Man during the drive by shooting chase. Tell me and I'll say you're full of horse dookey. There's no way that no one reported seeing that, which raises the question of how Garou and his  werewolf cops can even keep their secret.

Garou's apartment looks like a gothic crypt. And apparently its in a big tall building. Strange, but not all that strange, I guess....I mean its supposed to be LA.

Why does Max even bother checking the pulse on Doug after Garou kills him? Garou ripped his throat out with his bare teeth. Don't be so optimistic Max, I'm pretty sure he was dead before he hit the floor and even if he wasn't he ain't gonna live long with his carotid artery in Garou's stomach.

The Final Judgment: Full Eclipse is one of those movies you should only watch when you really can't find anything else to watch. You won't leave it with that "Man, that was cool!" feeling, you'll leave it with a "At least its over" feeling. If you simply must see Mario Van Peebles in something, rent New Jack City. Its practically the only Mario Van Peebles movie my wife will watch.