I saw this with my online Dank Movie Night crew on Saturday night, and it was surprisingly good! Directed by special effects expect Douglas Trumbull, this movie should have come out in 1981, but was delayed by star Natalie Wood's mysterious and untimely death. At first the studio thought about shelving it entirely, but since her role was 90% complete and - as always - money talks in Hollywood, they finished it using her sister Lana as a stand-in and released it in 1983.
The plot is about a group of scientists - including an estranged married couple (Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood) - that is headed up by Louise Fletcher (!). Because of the high wattage here, what might have been a somewhat cheesy premise is raised to legitimate drama: the scientists are on the verge of a breakthrough in recording human thought and feeling onto a special variety of tape media, and allowing people to experience the sensations when it's played back.
But the military wants in (it IS the '80s), to train soldiers or otherwise misuse the tech. And one of the group uses the technology to record himself having sex, and then almost dies when he splices the orgasm into a constant loop and attempts to experience it. When project head Fletcher dies, she records her death experiences - and Walken becomes obsessed with experiencing them in full.
The plot unfolds pretty logically from there, and has a rather upbeat ending, which I didn't expect. It was a satisfying sci-fi thriller - maybe not in the uppermost pantheon of 80s sci-fi, but definitely worth your attention if you're curious about anything you just read. Better than I thought it would be.
I remember liking this as a kid... but when I just saw it 30-35 years later as an adult, I hated it. What a shame. This movie, made by Cannon Pictures, can't decide what it is or what it wants to do. Chuck Norris, ostensibly the star, and second-billed Lee Marvin are in this movie for FAR too short a time, and given too little to do or say. The movie wants to be a serious drama with bold action sequences. Instead, it's a tepid, weakly written, anemic excuse for Chuck Norris to mildly kick a very small amount of butt for too brief a spell.
The movie spends way too long setting up the central Lebanese plane hijacking - I got so impatient as they tried to establish a full cabin full of passengers, all of which we are supposed to care for and about. I *didn't* care! If Chuck Norris is here, let him kick ass!! But they don't. The movie is VERY slow for something called Delta Force, even after Norris is finally unleashed. Poorly paced, poorly written... not a standout, I'm afraid. Avoid it unless you are a Norris or Cannon Films completionist.
This one surprised me. Bearing a paltry 9% approval on RottenTomatoes, I enjoyed it quite a bit nonetheless. Peak zany Robin Williams and peak jowly cynic Walter Matthau pair together in a movie that has an actual message to deliver.
Two recently unemployed men - unemployed because of their mutual carelessness, although neither will ever realize it - cross paths in a diner right when it is being robbed. They foil the robber, but unfortunately they see his face ... and he knows they have. So he hunts them down to shut them up. Sounds serious, right? It's not.
Both Williams and Matthau don't really seem like they're acting at all. Williams is an insecure mess, sensitive, funny, out of control, a motormouth who becomes obsessed with survival and self-defense after the robbery. Matthau is a sour, ironic, cynical father who takes the world in stride and hardly knows how to process the antics of Williams.
Although critics like Ebert thought this movie had an identity crisis and tried to have things both ways, I think it actually works in its favor. Part of the fun is seeing dour Matthau glower at Williams, and Williams mug it up for Matthau. And the robber is ... Jerry Reed! And he's fantastic, as a world-weary Southern-fried assassin, who really doesn't WANT to kill them, but hey, he has a living to make, and he can't have them telling the cops, can he?
In true 1983 fashion, everyone ends this movie as friends (even the hitman!), and the real villain is revealed to be the soulless corporate exec who is preying off vulnerable men who fear for their masculinity - echoes of the opening scene, when exec Williams is fired by a trained parrot (a truly bizarre scene). The movie doesn't QUITE say what it wants in the perfect way... but it's still light fun.
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