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Reviews
Eliminators (1986)
A Perfect 'Popcorn Muncher' if I ever saw one
Without a doubt, this is a movie made by some guys who were sitting around and started going, "You know what would be cool? Androids." "No dude, ninjas. Ninjas fighting cavemen." "Can we do like a Romancing the Stone/Indiana Jones kind of riverboat adventure?" "Wait, wait, wait... I've got it. Androids and ninjas fighting cavemen with a riverboat captain and a pretty female scientist and her pet robot for some extra sweetness." "Sweet! And the villain will be a time traveling robotic Roman!" Basically, that's the movie. You don't have to think hard, you won't have your emotions poked or fondled, instead you'll think, "Well, this is certainly a movie." It's not going to win any awards, but it's fun to watch for sheer noise and pure 80s awesome. The acting isn't terrible, considering how goofy the plot is (you try playing against a ninja, cavemen, tiny robots and time traveling Romans while keeping a straight face) and the whole thing has a very bouncy feel to it.
The locations vary just enough and the costumes have juuust enough detail to them to not make it feel like an all out cheese fest, but instead it's a perfect movie to munch down popcorn to. I'm hoping for a DVD release with commentaries, deleted scenes, trailers, etc. Rifftrax, I'm looking at you for commentaries!
Leprechaun 6: Back 2 Tha Hood (2003)
Give the Lep Some Credit!
I've seen a bunch of bad movies in my time, Incredible Melting Man, Jack Frost 1 AND 2, the Sleepaway Camp series, and yes, every single Leprechaun movie ever made, including Leprechaun in Space.
But y'know what? This is actually a pretty darned good movie. They finally figured out some things they needed to have been doing since the first movie. 1.) Give the gold to people who will immediately go out and spend it, buy things they like, bling bling, etc. In the other Lep movies, basically, all that happened was people would just stare at the gold and say, "Wow, gold." 2.) Make the people into survivors. Instead of the wimpy characters that get killed with things such as..ahem..pogo sticks and go karts, they actually had every character, aside from one large woman that is, put up a heck of a fight when the Lep came after them. In fact, it actually feels like the Lep earns every Kill he gets in the movie, as he's flattened, burned, shot, snap-kicked, run down, electrified and more.
This movie also has improved cinematography and visuals over the other Lep movies. Once you get over the fact that you're watching a bunch of 5'11-6'3 people running from a 4'1 Leprechaun, it's actually pretty well done. The characters seem realistic, the death scenes are impressive, such as one character being impaled by a bong, another having his heart ripped out, etc.
There are also more jokes in this movie. The Lep series has always tried to be comedy, but this time they actually succeeded with a few visual gags, and a lot of dark humor. One of the best jokes involves our heroes attempting to crush the Lep under a low-rider he's clinging to, while traveling at high speed. It's a clever weapon, and makes for a good gag.
Finally, they've given Warwick Davis a decent costume this time around. Before he was just wearing cheap, Halloween costume style leprechaun gear. Think stereotypical. But in this film, he's actually wearing an outfit that looks like a 10th century, decrepit little warlock or wizard or...well, leprechaun would wear.
All in all, it's a decent movie, it's well made, and hopefully it's a sign of things to come if they keep improving the series in this manner. And props to Warwick for doing most of his own stunts in this! They really abused him, but the end product was terrific.