Invasion Force
THE STORY: There are plenty of actors that make their living playing b-movie villains. Like, I dunno, say...Billy Drago. Every time I see Drago in a movie he's a bad guy and I suppose some people find him frightening, but I don't. Maybe its because he's always a psycho-type bad guy and the movies he's in are kind of stupid. (Like Solar Force!) Then there's Richard Lynch. Lynch usually plays villains and to be honest I think he's rather good at it. But he's usually in really bad movies and I don't think he gets to do a lot with his parts.
The premise for this movie sounds good....really. The final product is a different story, but the idea at least seems promising. While filming an action movie in the forest a film crew finds a group of international terrorists operating in the woods. The terrorists, led by some old guy General and a ruthless Colonel Cooper, kill one of the film makers in front of young actress, Jonie, while they were walking through the woods one night
The director, Ben, takes two guys, Doug and Chuck with him the next morning to confirm Jonie's story. They find the terrorists and after a really silly string of "The bad guys are shooting at us with automatic weapons but not hitting anything" scenes, Ben is captured.
Jonie goes back to the film crew's camp with Doug and chuck and talks them crew into using their special effects skills to try and rescue Ben. It seems they don't need too much skill to rescue Ben since Doug just walks into the enemy camp and gets him. Colonel Cooper and the terrorist army gives chase, but the crew has set up a few booby traps and they make it to a relatively safe position. But they're still stuck in the woods with the bad guys. Ben has a "brilliant" idea.
Um, its not really brilliant. In fact its stupid and would certainly never work in real life. They basically let the bad guys gun them down. Everyone but Jonie and Ben get shot. That's when a really lame plot twist comes into effect. Colonel Cooper tires of the general and shoots him right in front of Ben and Jonie. It seems that Cooper knows Joni. You see Cooper works for some shadowy government agency and the terrorist attack was supposed to somehow coerce the US into giving financial aid to some central american government. (I didn't write it) Jonie is not an actress (No s***!) She's a CIA agent! But the game is over, it looks like. Until Ben unveils his plan. Everyone who was shot stands up. Ben and his friends managed to sneak into the enemy camp and replace all of their ammo with blanks from the movie. Even the General was in on this scheme. (Some vague reason is given for this and it doesn't really matter) Ben even tape recorded Cooper's gloating so the CIA will have evidence of his tomfoolery on a miniature tape recorder.
Of course being a b-movie, Cooper has to almost get away and then somehow capture Jonie. He threatens to kill her if Ben doesn't give him the tape. Ben tricks him by giving him the empty case which then explodes, killing Cooper. Now normally I'd be asking how exactly is getting the tape going to help Cooper? There's a dozen witnesses not to mention a few dead guys for evidence. And how did the tape case explode? But it doesn't matter because as the camera pulls back we see that the entire thing was a movie set!
This was weak. Really weak. Now this was already a bad movie with a lot of plot holes but to shake it all off and go "see folks! It was all a movie being made!" is a crappy way to end things. Its like the filmmakers said "None of the glaring plot holes, the ridiculous circumstances or the horrid acting count because none of it was real!" No, it does count. Its an insult to the audience to end this movie in such a way.
The only actor of any note in this movie was Richard Lynch as Colonel Cooper. If his performance seems intense its only because he's the only one in the movie that actually can act. These people in general, sucked!
Best Lines: "I'm a damn good actress!"-At least Jonie has self confidence.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:
1.) Don't you just hate lame practical jokes? Like when someone tries to scare you by hiding in a room. You know they're in there and you know they'll jump out and go "boo". When they do it you may jump more from being startled than from any actual fright but this person laughs hysterically like its the funniest thing they've ever seen? Well, that's how I felt during the scene when one of the stagehands puts on some stage blood and frightens Jack, pretending to have had her throat cut. Did Jack just celebrate his first birthday the day before? They're shooting a movie for the love of Pete! Any goober would have figured its stage blood! To make it worse the woman laughs like its the most original joke in the world. The whole thing is presented in such a straightforward way I get the idea that the makers of this film felt that they had just included an important scene. It just made a lame looking movie a little lamer.
2.) What kind of soldiers are these terrorists? They can't catch a lone woman in the woods at night wearing a bright white top? When the film crew goes to rescue Ben they pretty much just waltz into the bad guys base and get him! Didn't the terrorists think to have a guard or some lookouts?
3.) Wait, wait...let me get this straight....this invasion force paradropped into the woods, killed Jack, moved his body so it wouldn't be found but left their parachutes lying around in plain sight?
NUDITY AND SEX: none
HUH?: Why would the terrorists chase Ben and company carrying a LAW in the first place? To make it even dumber, Ben has a plan to kill their pursuers by getting Doug to shoot at the LAW one guy has slung over his shoulder.(Hoping the explosion will kill them) Now, I'm not even sure that would work but Doug, who supposed to be a vet fires and misses....but if he's a vet then he should have known that the M-16 he's carrying hasn't been zeroed! Only military types will understand this probably, but the sights on an M-16 have to be adjusted for the user, more often than not. Of course, Doug could have just set the rifle for full auto (or burst mode on an M16A2) and simply shot the [unwrite]ing guys.
THE TALLY: I'm betting that you think this movie will get a tombstone. I really didn't say one thing positive about it. Well, it came close. The ending almost deep sixed it. But it was entertaining in the fact that it so damn awful. If you ever rent it expect it to really suck and expect its suckiness to be all the enjoyment you'll get out of it.