Dr. Jones I Presume: THE SECRET OF THE INCA'S EMPIRE (1987)

In the annals of the INDY rip-off, there have been some bastardizations of classic literature. Well, two, anyway. That would be Cannon's 1985 epic KING SOLOMON'S MINES and its sequel, which take broad liberties with H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel and its 1887 sequel. Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan were visionaries after all (yeah, I said it), but at the time few other films had the genius to use a highly respected book as an inspiration for their faux Indy efforts. Case in point, Gianfranco Parolini's THE SECRET OF THE INCA'S EMPIRE. Based on a novel titled THE SEARCH FOR THE BURIED CITY, author Gualberto Sanchez Alvino also helped pen the script, although that seems to be the bulk of his work at the time and while I admit I've never read the book, I seriously doubt you could call it "classic literature". In recent years Akvino has written a few books about writers, but I'm guessing his foray into adventure fiction was not very successful. Much like this movie.

Opening in a professor's classroom, Professor Alexis Xristopoulos (played by Parolini himself) is teaching a very appreciative class about a pre-Incan civilization that was founded by red-haired, fair skinned humanoids from space who came from "the cortadeiras" and have co-mingled with humans for centuries. He uses a drawing on a chalkboard showing what appears to be a submarine in an ocean trench to make his point about as clear as a blind man's glasses. His very brief speech is said to be the theories of two professors, one La Fuente and one Rivera, aaaand class dismissed! I know I learned a lot, how about you? If I was one of the poor saps in this guy's class, I'd be demanding my tuition back.

In the jungles of Columbia, which are strangely populated almost entirely by Filipinos, a rugged, fedora wearing "ethnologist" (why not just an anthropologist?) improbably named Professor Clifton Bradbury III (Bruno Minniti) is being stalked by what appears to be a member of a Doobie Brother's cover band in a loincloth (Kenneth Peerless). Why is he being stalked? Why does this guy want to kill him? This is never made clear in the entirety of the film's running time. Apparently someone realized this and in one of a few attempts to explain many inscrutable things in this film via a voice-over track, we get somebody presumably saying something in the "native's" mind: "Don't kill, Inca, don't kill. The man must get there before us, it is the will of Inty, the will of your god". Thank goodness for that voice-over. That explains everything!

Suddenly out of the jungles and back in civilization, a reporter asks Clifton at a news conference what he thinks of a book by fellow ethnologist Linda Logan (Kelly London). Without hesitation, he brutally slams the book and Linda personally, who as luck would have it was sitting by the radio preparing to eat what appears to be the world's largest hot dog when she hears this. Unfortunately we never get to see the hot dog being eaten. What are the chances that these two are going to meat, I mean meet? That's a sucker bet for sure.

Suddenly back in the jungle (although the plaque on the hacienda says "Los Angeles"!), Linda stops a man from trying to get in the door to speak to her boss, professor La Fuente, causing him to be shot by the men that are chasing him. The dying man instructs her to give his hat to the professor immediately, to which the professor exclaims "Straw hat! Call the police!" I understand that some head-wear can be alarming, but this is ridiculous. Of course the hat contained a map to the secret, buried city to which everyone is looking for. The killers get inside the house and with his dying breath La Fuente charges Linda with getting the map to professor Rivera, who apparently is also somewhere in this very jungle... or Los Angeles... I don't know. Linda finds the RLF (Rivera La Fuente) camp, but is cornered by the thugs who killed her boss. Clifton just happens to be there driving a giant drill into a large stone artifact (wtf?!) and fights off the killers. Since Rivera is not at the camp, the pair set out to find the professor or plunder the alien treasure. Which ever comes first. I mean, what's the point of being an ethnologist if you can't score some sweet loots, amiright?

As it turns out professor Evans was responsible for professor La Fuente's execution and has an army of thugs looking for that map and killing everyone in their way, including professor Rivera. Professor Evans (who is also Professor Xristopoulos!) has an encampment filled with people wearing ERS logos (not to be confused with RLF) and has made it his priority to loot the buried city by fair means or foul. Mostly foul. Although we only see Evans once or twice, we hear his voice from a loudspeaker on a helicopter as he tells his thugs not to harm Clifton and Linda and that he just wants to be partners! This doesn't stop main henchman, Angel (Vassili Karis), from shooting bullets and grenades at them and at least twice threatening to rape Linda! I guess you can't get good help these days.

If you are thinking that there are an awful lot of professors in this movie, brother, you are not wrong. The professors are rarely on screen and are sometimes referred to as "professor", which turns following what should be a fairly simple plot into a labyrinthine nightmare of Who's on First. Not that all of the characters being clearly identified in the movie or even in the credits would make the script completely straight forward. The film jumps around without warning or explanation and has characters pop in and out of the film with even less. Quite honestly, I have no idea what Kenneth Peerless' character is supposed to be doing. He pops up every now and then to glower meaningfully into the distance or put an arrow in someone who is trying to harm our romantically stoned duo.

The bulk of the film has Clifton and Linda on the run from Angel and his gang, leading them into pitfalls with piranha (which are not shown other than a small fish that seems to be glued to one of Clifton's pant legs), papier-mache crocodiles, inclement weather, indigenous primitives who cannot throw a spear, and a bunch of head hunter cultists who worship a fertility idol that's perched on top of a rock by decapitating woman and hauling their heads on a rope up to said rock. Yeah, I have no idea what that's all about. Probably my favorite bit involves a scene where an arrow grazes Linda's lovely backside. Clifton is one smooth dude, as he tells her that the wound could get infected and there is only one thing to do! Yep, gotta suck out the poison. I have to remember that one for the next time I'm stuck out in the jungles of Columbia/Philippines/Los Angeles with a hot British ethnologist girl.

As it turns out the much ballyhooed buried city is merely a couple of water-logged caves that look like left-over sets from one of Parolini's 1960s sword and sandal flicks. Well, except for one room that has a church organ installed next to an alter so that The Golden Condor, a cat pawed, gossamer winged, laser-eye shooting deity can play ominous music. No, really, I'm not making this up. Why someone would want to hang out in a small, wet cave playing the organ until someone finally shows up a this secret location is beyond me. There is a twist ending here that not only clears up nothing that came before, but doesn't make any fucking sense whatsoever! Highlight for spoilers: The Golden Condor is actually professor Rivera in the Inty god outfit. So he is not dead, was at the city all along and told the Inca not to kill Clifton so that Clifton could find him playing the organ and - WHAT?! I am so confused.

I guess it's not surprising that some of the people involved never did anything after this. London clearly had so much fun being rained on, sliding down muddy hills and falling into pools of water every day of the shoot, that she must have reconsidered her career options. I don't know how she would have fared in other films, but she's easy on the eyes and is far less annoying than the usual Kate Capshaw wannabe. Hell, she's far less annoying than Kate Capshaw and could have easily gone on to make other low-rent genre films. Bruno Minniti's rather short film career dried up after this, but he made most of his career on soap operas and as a singer. Kenneth Peerless, on the other hand, had a nice little career following this film working in a few Cirio H. Santiago films (he started with the 1986 classic FUTURE HUNTERS) and a few Italian efforts. He may be best remembered as Hal in the original BLOODFIST (1989).

Gianfranco Parolini (aka Frank Kramer) is an interesting director as his work is very hit and miss, particularly in his later days. Most folks would probably say miss, but I think IF YOU MEET SARTANA PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH (1968), SABATA (1969) and ADIOS SABATA (1970) are damn fine spaghetti westerns that, while they may not be the cream of the crop, are a long way from scraping the bottom. Parolini also directed the first four films in the very popular German/Italian James Bond knock-offs, the KOMMISSAR X films, that started off with KISS KISS KILL KILL (1965). Then came THE RETURN OF SABATA (1971) and everything goes to hell. Well, with the exception of the Michael Colby, Paul L. Smith Hill and Spencer knock-off WE'RE NO ANGELS (1975) and the stunningly inept, but hugely entertaining, King Kong knock-off YETI - GIANT OF THE 20TH CENTURY (1977), which is really required viewing for fans of Italian schlock.

SECRET was Parolini's last film and it came after a ten year gap following YETI, though he was only 57 when SECRET was made. While many of his films are ramshackle, inscrutable messes, that's hardly stopped people like Ulli Lommel from continuing to pummel unsuspecting audiences into submission with gawd-awful movies for decades. I think if Parolini had been a little less conservative and indulged in some gore effects and nudity, as was demanded of Italian genre films at the time, he would be fondly remembered today. Err, by degenerates who like that sort of thing, I mean.

Read More

Dr. Jones I Presume: TREASURE OF THE MOON GODDESS (1987)

With the Jack Hunter trilogy scratched off our scroll, we are now in what they would call uncharted waters. This is where I allow my muse to take over and lead me to whatever suits me best. Sometimes it can be something like a title. Sometimes it can be an actor. And sometimes it can be a poster that catches my eye. In this case it was a little bit of all three of those. Seriously, how could not love something called TREASURE OF THE MOON GODDESS? And it reunites Don Calfa and Linnea Quigley after RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985)! Plus, look at that gorgeous poster on the side there. How could this movie not rule? How? Let me show you.

In an ominous sign, TREASURE opens with a voice over in the very first shot as Don Calfa says, “Okay, so here’s the picture…” We then see a treasure hunter (co-writer Eric Weston) running across a muddy field while being attacked by some natives. After some fisticuffs and the guy getting blown away in a hotel room, we get bad sign number two as we cut to “real time” as Harold Grand (Calfa), Hollywood agent to the non-stars, is explaining to his bikini clad secretary all about his adventures down in Central America with his top client, Lu De Belle (Quigley). Harold is apparently a really bad agent because as we jump back to the story proper he has Lu singing in a Central American dive where pigs and chickens are roaming freely. Man, I can’t wait until Jon Taffer gets to this place. To make matters worse, Harold is beaten up by some henchmen of Mr. Diaz (Danny Addis). Seems Diaz wants Harold to deliver Lu to a place called Cantana with the vague instructions of “you must get her there.”

The right thing to do would be to split, but then we wouldn’t have a movie so some threatening knuckle-cracking, neck-grabbing and angry-stancing has Harold chartering the boat of Brandy (Jo Ann Ayers) and Sam Kidd (Asher Brauner) to the required location. Things don’t initially go well as Sam, our Indiana Jones-clone, throws Harold off his boat into the water. What could convince Sam to help them out? Money and booze, of course! After Harold offers to buy him a drink later that night at a bar, Sam gladly accepts the job of taking them down river to Cantana. The power of alcohol. Well, that and Brandy reminding him they are flat broke a few minutes earlier. They are about to be broker as some thugs catch up to them on their own boat the next day and their leader screams, “You give us the blonde woman and I give you your life.” Jeez, these dudes really liked Quigley’s nude scenes in ROTLD and SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984), didn’t they? Sam ain’t about to hand over the ‘80s top scream queen, so naturally his boat is blown up. The foursome escape though and keep heading down toward Cantana. Why? Because some random baddie said so.

It is all soon explained but not soon enough. As they slog through the jungle, we get “funny” dialogue like this -

Harold: “Hey, look at that lizard.”
Lu: “That’s an alligator, Harold!”

Naturally, this dialogue is laid over some random shot of an alligator (more on that later) We also get hijinxs like Calfa riding in a bus with a cow and being bitten on on the ass by a tarantula (more on that later too). Our mysterious plot is finally unveiled when our group reaches a tribe and finds Mr. Diaz impersonating the leader. His reason for desiring Lu is the age old W.T.W.W.A. (“Where the white women at?”) conundrum. Seems Lu is the spitting image of the Moon Goddess and Diaz wants her to impersonate the deity in order to claim some treasure. Sam and crew out Diaz to the tribe, but they say that to prove themselves they must enter the Temple of Imak in the Cave of the Moon and bring back some treasure after a series of challenges. Wait, isn’t that the basis of the kids' game show LEGENDS OF THE HIDDEN TEMPLE? Finally, at the 70 minute mark we start getting our Indiana Jones on.

In case you haven’t already figured it out, TREASURE OF THE MOON GODDESS is a mess. Jumping back-and-forth between the Mexico footage and Don Calfa’s narration, it was also apparently a mess of a production. The film was originally mentioned in Variety at the MIFED 1984 market as a product of Hemdale with the title DREAMS OF GOLD (“Two newies that Hemdale will dangle as presales for potential buyers are DREAMS OF GOLD, described as a $ 5,000,000 action-drama with Gerald Green producing, Eric Weston directing and Asher Brauner starring.”) By the time production began in November 1984 (meaning Calfa and Quigley pretty much went from ROTLD straight to this) in Central America locations, Weston was listed as a co-director alongside Joseph Louis Agraz. Something strange then happened as the film shutdown and then resumed production two years later in November 1986 in the Philippines. Those cut aways to Calfa and the narration are suddenly starting to make sense. I’d theorize Agraz shot the Mexican footage and Weston directed the later narration footage, but that would appear to be wrong as Weston was on the film before Agraz. But something happened on this film as displayed by its choppy nature and moments of dubbing. Need more evidence? As Tom told me, watch how often Don Calfa’s hairstyle changes throughout the film. At one point his hair is even blonde (it is black throughout most of the film).

Not that there was going to be much hope for either side of the production. Remember that spider bite I mentioned earlier? The natives tell Harold they have a cure for it called Yaksuk. As any fifth grade joke teller will know well in advance, Yaksuk ends up being a gay guy played in over-the-top fashion. Wah, wah, wah. Of course, I’ll accept bad comedy if we get some good Indiana Jones-esque action. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen until the last few minutes and, while somewhat impressive, doesn’t forgive the rest of the film. And then there is Asher Brauner as Sam Kidd. At this point an industry vet for over a decade, Brauner adopts a completely flat delivery on every line. There is no emotion, no humor, no anything. As Tom said to me in an email, it is like he tried to sound tough but comes off sounding deeply medicated. Maybe he was pissed at the dialogue by Weston and his co-writer? Who was his co-writer? Oh, just some guy named Asher Brauner! Dude, you co-wrote a part for yourself and screwed it up? I’d blame the language barrier, but I’m pretty sure Brauner speaks English.

Regardless of the production woes, I guess we should applaud them for getting the darn thing finished after so many years. According to Variety, the film opened at San Francisco’s Embassy Theater on December 19, 1987 and later in the New York market on January 15, 1988. Oh, yeah, it also had a new production shingle (Ascot Entertainment) and new distributor (Manson International) during this release. And its very limited theatrical release pump out a poster that actually featured Calfa, essentially the film’s lead, in the poster.

That wasn’t the case when it had an unceremonious debut on video via Vidmark Entertainment a few months later in February 1988. That is when we got the cover that lured me in. My muse is still waiting for that badass “hanging by a rope, attacked by alligator” scene as depicted in the poster.

Read More

Dr. Jones I Presume: JACK HUNTER AND THE STAR OF HEAVEN (2009)

In the previous installment, Jack (Ivan Sergei) and Nadia's (Joanne Kelly) goofy driver Tariq (Mario Naim Bassil) has a moment of prophetic insight when he muses that THE GODFATHER (1972) was a great movie, but the third part, not so much. While I wouldn't call THE LOST TREASURE OF UGARIT a great movie, it and the sequel are entertaining enough, but part three seems to have lost the plot. Almost literally.

Opening in Bulgaria, Littmann (Thure Riefenstein) has snuck into a crowded marina under the cover of broad daylight. Yep, the notorious grave robber and mass murderer has decided to make a grand entrance in a speedboat with a posse, for no apparent reason. Not only has the NSA got the marina staked out, but apparently Littmann's movements are so obvious that even Jack is waiting incognito (ie: sans hat) on a bench. Of course the NSA make a complete hash of things by simply rushing out into the open and initiating a shoot-out in the middle of a civilian gathering with bodies dropping left and right. And why are American foreign ops so unpopular, I wonder? After Jack takes a bullet in the shoulder, which bothers him for at least minutes, in typical government agency fashion, the NSA lay the blame for the massive clusterfuck at Jack's front door. Liz figures since he was there, therefore, his fault! It seems that the NSA is run by my parents.

Littmann's rich, asshole client, Petrovski (Teoman Kumbaracibasi), is more than a little miffed that Littmann has interrupted his pool party to show up empty handed. Why Littmann went back to be humiliated after the shoot-out and didn't just find another way to get the Star is a unexplained. I mean, if your boss told you to bring back a cup of coffee, and your boss had a firearm, would you go back empty-handed? No, because that would be dumb.

Now Littmann is (*ahem*) under the gun to get the final piece of the Staff and bring it back to the unscrupulous Russian for... whatever reason. I mean, he's a Russian that lounges around a pool with hot chicks in bikinis everywhere, whatever it is, it can't be good. Unfortunately for all concerned, as we know from the end of part 2, nobody knows where the Star is.

The writers made the assumption that the Romans were responsible for the destruction of Ugarit and the theft of the Staff, and so now everyone has to figure out where the Romans may have taken it. Oddly, Hunter makes the assertion that Octavious (Emperor Augustus) must have stolen the Star when he conquered Egypt. Since Ugarit is only a minor detour to a Roman army, a day or two out of their way, this seems reasonably plausible. The only problem is the fact that The Battle of Alexandria, the final of Octavious' wars against Antony, took place in 30 BC, over 1100 years after Ugarit was destroyed! Jack's story may be good enough for the NSA, but I ain't buying it.

As it turns out, the NSA has computers that can do pretty much anything except the dishes. After scanning in a picture of the box that had been made to hold the Star, they come up with a newspaper clipping of Nadia and her ex-boyfriend Fuad (Mert Yavuzcan) at an auction in which the box is sold by Faud's father. This is going to get awkward. Liz manages to twist Jack's arm to go to Istanbul (not Constantinople) and work with Nadia to get that artifact before Littmann does, which presumably would mean the end of the world as we know it. Fortunately for Littmann, a girl that speaks German literally walks in front of him and is able to give him the information that he needs to start his chase. All of the good will that the writers earned by doing a bit of historical research is slowly being eaten away with these incredibly lazy bits of writing that proliferate this final entry.

Starting off with Faud's old man, Mr. Antaki (Michael Halphie), Jack, Nadia, Tariq and Faud follow a trail that leads up a variety of strange ends. Their second stop is a Christian church to talk to an extremely helpful priest who directs them to an elderly widow who is spending her last days in a convent. When they arrive they are told that she is very old, but find that she is in her early '70s, is sharp as a tack and wants to do nothing more than talk about Puccini's MADAM BUTTERFLY. Nadia gets all mushy as the discuss love lost and maybe something else as this is about where I start discussing interest lost.

These scenes give us two things: Yet another chance to appease the local tourism board and also to find some inexpensive locations that at least give the viewer something to look at while we have yet another scene of talking heads. Wasn't there supposed to be some adventuring going on here? Where's the adventuring? Oh and we get to touch on the subject of Christianity in Turkey. You see, Nadia broke off her engagement to Faud because she was Muslim and he was Christian and their families weren't happy about it.

Littmann, like a slow dog with a slippery bone, is following the their every step, shooting up every place Jack and company visit. This breaks up the rather dry proceedings, as does a car chase around the scenic coast of Istanbul. Unfortunately for everyone (including the audience), the car chase leads to the group being arrested and ending up in a really rather nice jail cell. C'mon now, we've all seen MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (1978), and I'm calling bullshit on that nice clean cell with wood-paneled walls and neatly arranged chairs. Aside from that, is there anything more exciting than our heroes sitting, despondent in a jail? Why yes there is! A second scene of jail sitting! That's right, after getting Liz to fly over and bail them out, they finally discover where the Star is located. The group then rush off to a monastery, but on the way decide to stop to help out at an accident between two cars in the middle of fucking nowhere! Literally (I seem to be using that word a lot), it is two cars who have collided head-on in an empty desert. This, of course, raises no red flags, and it is, of course, a trap. Proving that their entire budget was squandered on the first two films, the producers take this opportunity to have Littmann take our protagonists to a rather odd holding pen in the middle of an abandoned factory. An abandoned factory. In the desert. How's that for excitement?

All of this finally leads up to some action in which Littmann has arranged to meet Petrovski to hand over the completed staff. The NSA are down for this, but instead of using strategically placed snipers to take out Littmann before he can use the staff, simply stumble down a mountain allowing themselves to be gunned down by Littmann's men en masse. Yep, our tax dollars at work.

This final show-down takes place next to a volcano which allows for another cheap, scenic location and better still for more cheap CGI. When I say "more" what I mean is: "only". This final installment is so threadbare that until the end there aren't even any special effects, aside from bullet squibs that make actors look like they are part of the NRA's Bastille Day celebration. I guess they thought that no one would watch past the first two or if they did, the viewers would feel compelled to sit through the last one because they invested the time in the first two. These cheap bastards even have the audacity to pull the old helicopter-exploding-behind-the-hill gag which I had thought went out with the A-TEAM in the '80s. Where are the exploding flower pots, I ask you?

Additionally, this denouement gives us an opportunity to shed a tear when Tariq waxes poetic about love in an attempt to push Jack into making a move on Nadia. Complete with swelling strings and lingering gazes. That said, it's still better than KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008).

Read More

Dr. Jones I Presume: JACK HUNTER AND THE QUEST FOR AKHENATEN'S TOMB (2008)

Okay, so when we last left Jack Hunter (Ivan Sergei), he had completely failed in his mission to secure one half of the “Eye of the Star of Heaven” and it fell into the hands of his mentor-turned-enemy Littmann (Thure Riefenstein). So to recap part one - Hunter failed on a museum heist, failed to save his boss Professor Schaffer, failed to save his new contact Ali in Syria, and failed on his main mission. Man, this guy has failed so much that he’d be perfect to be President of the United States right now.

Anyway, onto part two - JACK HUNTER AND THE QUEST FOR AKEN… ARKHEN… ARKHAM ASYLUM… AKHENATEN’S TOMB. Okay, Tom, I get it now. I get the unpronounceable entry. Oh wait, I’m typing this. As the show opens, Hunter is kidnapped and taken to a place with a black bag over his head. Turns out this is how the NSA gets people to their headquarters so they don’t know where it is. Is this really necessary? Given Hunter’s aforementioned failures, I’m sure him remembering directions isn’t something they needed to worry about. Anyway, as Tom mentioned previously, meek little Liz (Susan Ward), the professor’s assistant, is actually a take-no-crap NSA government leader. How do the filmmakers establish this? She pulls her hair back tight! And how do we know this is the NSA? Because they are in a room with monitors everywhere and there are lots of white folks typing fast on computers...wait, I’m doing that now...am I NSA?

Liz tells Hunter that Littmann is working for a Russian mafioso named Vladmir Petrovsky (Teoman Kumbaracibasi) and he needs to skedaddle to Egypt to beat him to finding the “Eye of the Star,” the second piece of the relic. Apparently there is an obelisk in Egypt that can help him find it and the best way to provide him cover is to reunite him with Nadia (Joanne Kelly) and Tariq (Mario Bassil). Wait...I can understand bringing back Nadia, who has a history with ancient treasures, but Tariq the taxi cab driver? Uh, okay. Anything to shoehorn in that comedic relief. Once in Egypt, they go to visit archaeologist (and old Hunter flame) Lena Halstorm (Alaina Huffman), Said (Tuncel Kurtiz, looking like the Turkish G. Gordon Liddy) and his assistant Eyhab (Alper Kul). Somehow I think Eyhab might be a traitor. I’m not sure what gave it away...hmmm, maybe this facial hair design?

The obelisk is a long, black foot long pillar with writing on it and Nadia displays her knowledge by saying, “It seems like it was meant to fit into something.” They run some tests (as one astute IMDb user mentioned: “Whilst in the museum, and Jack is examining the obelisk, he asks if it has been carbon dated. Carbon dating is only valid for organic materials - the obelisk is clearly made of stone and could not be carbon dated.” - thank you science nerd Jack Hunter fan) and Jack begins to decipher a location. He then places that location on a current map of Egypt and...hey, didn’t he do the same thing in part one? Before you can say Belloq, Littmann shows up and there is a big shootout. The foursome of Hunter, Nadia, Tariq and Lena escape, but not before the duplicitous Eyhab reports them as having stolen the artifact. Jack and his crew make it to a passenger boat, but a bunch of random baddies catch up and fisticuffs ensue. This allows for a great scene where Tariq subdues a bad guy by showering him with a fire extinguisher and all of the passengers erupt in applause. You know, just like in real life.

Anyway, Jack and crew escape on a little boat and make it up river to the desert they need to be at (apparently Egypt is a really small country). They make it to some cursed ruins where Jack inserts the obelisk (hey, Nadia was right!) and deciphers the next location to head to. This means traveling through the “Valley of Death,” which naturally gives them little problem. The next day they head to the next site and start their journey by - how else - picking up a ride with a random guy. Rule #1 by the writers of this series: If the protagonists are stuck somewhere, there is always some random Arab guy willing to help out. This poor dude gets more than he bargained for as soon his truck is besieged by more random heavies and Jack has to take command for a desert highway chase. Once they make it to town, they fall into the hands of Col. Mustafa (Sinan Tuzcu), a West Point educated military man. He plans to turn them over to the authorities until he finds out about their quest for Akhenaten’s tomb. Naturally, he senses a chance for..wait for it...a promotion! Guess ethics wasn’t a big on the curriculum at West Point. Naturally, under the pressure of a gun and his friends held hostage, Jack leads them the next location but the group soon encounter the Midian soldiers, a group sworn to protect the tomb. After deciphering the location of the tomb, Hunter uses the ensuing chaos to jump off a cliff (perhaps his most Indiana Jones-esque moment of this episode) and go free his friends. But when he arrives at the jail he finds out that punk Littmann and his friends. How did he know they were there? Seems ol’ flame Lena was a turncoat too and proof positive that you can’t trust women with short hair. So, of course, we are headed back to the tomb.

Apologies if the review above sounds a lot like Tom’s first review, but these movies are almost identical in their layout. I say almost because there is one major difference between the two. You see, when they reach the Egyptian tomb at the end here (spoiler alert for anyone who might watch these) they find the sarcophagus empty of any treasure. Yes, you got that right, Hunter not only fails this time, but in the immortal words of Ted White, “You’ll get nothing and like it!” Well, he does get a Roman coin, which, of course, will be his next clue to lead him on his next journey. Yes, this entire journey from beginning to end was done for absolutely nothing. It was literally 90 minutes of misdirection and filler to lead to the concluding part 3. I would have expected more from a production that delivers a wanted poster that looks like this:

Seriously? No height, weight, eye color? Just a name and pic of him in his costume? Very crazy as someone might arrest Harrison Ford. Or at the very least David Keith. And no phone number? What are you supposed to do if you see him? Shout real loud? That said, the producers get a lot of great location work in Turkey (standing in for Egypt) and this might be most action packed entry since we get three shootouts and one car chase. Best of all, the movie never bored me and there were no CGI sandstorm. Oh and Alaina Huffman - looking a bit like Charlize Theron - was hot as hell. Jeez, unpronounceable title aside, I really lucked out with this entry. As a great man once said, “Still, it's better than sitting through INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008) which came out the same year.” Of course, let’s see how that man feels after he watches the third and final part when the producers suddenly run out of money...

Read More

Dr. Jones I Presume: JACK HUNTER AND THE LOST TREASURE OF UGARIT (2008)

The SyFy Network has carved a nice niche in cheap, indifferently made TV exploitation movies that pretty much pass us by without even causing a blip on the radar. While sometimes their rip-offs of JAWS rip-offs look appealing, why would I watch something cynically made with bad CG when I can reach into a box and pull out Enzo G. Castellari's THE LAST JAWS (1981) or J.P. Simon's THE RIFT (1990)? Because of this it's no surprise to find that we completely missed this Indiana Jones inspired mini-series. Now, in our exhaustive search for cinematic relics, we don our fedoras and whip out this trilogy.

In a private French museum, a thief in a balaclava and sunglasses (!?) sneaks in and attempts to take a picture of a large cuneiform tablet, but ends up just stealing the damn thing after bumbling that whole "sneaking" thing.

Of course we find out that the thief is Jack Hunter (Ivan Sergei) who is a way too young and way too beardless (no, the stubble thing doesn't count) to be an anthropologist, which I guess is why he was stealing antiquities instead of digging them up. Hunter, back in Los Angeles, takes the tablet to his friend and mentor Professor Schaffer (Sean Lawlor) who needs to switch to decaff and has spent his entire career trying to discover the hiding place of a mythical staff that could be used as a powerful weapon. Never mind the the ancient Syrian civilization was in reality pillaged and burned to the ground by foreign raiders, which begs the question, why didn't they just use their super-staff of badassery to blow up all of the ships before they even landed? Yeah, never mind that, Schaffer is convinced that it is hidden somewhere in the ruins and gets royally pissed off when Jack says that he's going on a trip to Florida and doesn't want to go find something that doesn't exist. That night Schaffer is murdered while deciphering the tablet and creating a map, of course this means one thing! Jack isn't going to Florida.

Stepping off the plane, all gussied up in his snap-brim fedora and regulation khakis, he meets Nadia (Joanne Kelly), half of his liaison with the Syrian antiquities department. As one would expect they immediately clash when Nadia rips into Jack accusing him of being nothing but a glorified thief, which from what we've seen so far is pretty much nail on head. The pair grumpily take off to meet Ali (Muhammed Cangoren), the second, and presumably less temperamental of the pair, but while trying to pick up a scroll that he has left in a shop, Jack and Nadia are attacked and chased all over an open-air market replete with fruit vendors. At one point they even fall right into the middle of a wedding. Apparently watching them destroy the stocked buffet table is supposed to be funny. There is nothing funny about this. If it was me, those two wouldn't have even made it out of the parking lot.

After getting news that Ali has been killed in a car accident, Jack, Nadia and their goof-ball, comic relief driver Tariq (Mario Naim Bassil) head out to the mountains to search for the treasure themselves. Unfortunately there is nothing Jack can possess that Littman cannot take away. Littman (Thure Riefenstein) is a rival archaeologist, and Jack's former mentor, who is so bad that not only does he dress in black, but has henchmen that dress in black and they all drive vehicles that are black. Bad, I tells ya! Additionally, he wants that Ugarit treasure and will kill anyone who gets in his way. Even his own men. He must be bitter about the fact that he looks like Alan Rickman and Packtrick Swayze's long lost love child. Really, it's pretty mesmerizing at times. Additionally, Jack is being tracked by Schaffer's assistant Liz (Susan Ward), who is in fact the head of the NSA who is spending billions of tax payer dollars to monitor the movements of a guy that steals historical relics, while doing absolutely nothing about it.

Along the way, Jack, Nadia and Tariq are chased, ambushed, shot at, kidnapped and have a very nice meal with some random guy who lives in a tent in the middle of the desert with about four, of what appear to be, motherless children. No, that's not creepy at all. Of course in the end they do find the staff and several cheap CG moments including the dreaded CG sandstorm. Honestly, that is pretty much the most groan inducing CG effect you can pull and yet for some reason everybody wants to do it. "You know what this movie needs? A sandstorm!" See? That doesn't even sound good on paper!

I believe that SyFy's target audience is people who are looking for something cheesy to watch on a rainy afternoon and have never seen any of the films that they are cribbing notes from. Not content to lift the premise and some set-pieces from the Indiana Jones films, the writers filch partial bits of dialogue too. In one scene Jack is running hell bent away from several attackers while screaming "start the jeep!" which mimics the scene in the beginning of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) where Indy is running away from attackers screaming "start the plane!" Just when you think they are ripping off the tarantula sequence, except here with scorpions, Jack merely flicks them off of his jacket and presses on. I was really expecting to find out where Forrestal cashed in, but I guess that would have been too obvious.

This somewhat lazy aping makes it all the more surprising that the series writers, Steven Jones, Kevin Moore, Michael Palmieri and George Shamieh, actually did a little anthropological homework using the setting of the very real Ugarit city state that dated from about 6000 BC to about 1200 BC. Now known as Ras Shamra, the city was a major coastal trading city, located directly across the Mediterranean from Alashiya (now known a Cypress). It's not too far of a stretch to imagine an ancient relic being hidden somewhere in the area. Well, except for the whole bit where the city gets looted and burned to the ground, but it's a good idea anyway.

The film was actually shot in Turkey for the most part, but the filmmakers go out of their way to paint an extremely nice picture of Syria, complimenting their food, hospitality and stunning landscape. The cynical side of me rolls its eyes at the obvious meddling by local tourism and film boards who want to make sure that the Americans don't portray all Syrians as psychotic baby killers. The less-cynical side of me thinks that it really does in fact look like a great place to visit and it makes the current atrocities in Syria even more gutwrenching. Sorry, I don't have a punchline here, check back with me in about 20 years.

Jack Hunter's first of three adventures doesn't even try to offer anything remotely original, but at the same time it is pretty benign for a modern TV movie. Honestly, considering the source, it should definitely hurt more, but it doesn't (completely) insult the audience's intelligence. If I was a 10 year old kid who never saw any of the Indy movies, I'd think it was mindblowing. Since I'm not a 10 year old kid and I have seen way too many Indy movies legit and rip-offs, it's kind of mildly entertaining. Still, it's better than sitting through INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008) which came out the same year. It's like the producers knew that the world needed an Indy fix and whatever they came up with would be better than the real thing.

Read More

Dr. Jones I Presume: Don't Call it a Comeback...

Marion Ravenwood: You're not the man I knew ten years ago. 

Indiana Jones: It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. 

Hard to believe, but it has been nearly seven years since “Dr. Jones, I Presume,” our groundbreaking coverage of the cinematic rip offs of Indiana Jones. Were we the first to cover some of these films? No. But were we the first to include RAIDERS OF THE MAGIC IVORY (1988) with pics of a drunken James Mitchum? You’re goddamn right! And guess what? A few people even actually read our write ups that ranged from kids cartoons to X-rated parodies to Tom unearthing every copy of KING SOLOMON’S MINES ever made. We tried to be as exhaustive as possible, but even back then we knew a few things slipped through the cracks of our whips. So we always knew we’d be back for as second (short) round to mop up the strays.

Haha, who am I kidding? As Tom likes to say, my muse is a fluttering thing and it sure fluttered into action this past February. Like thoughts of INDIANA JONES IV, it started innocently enough but soon spiraled out of control. You see, Tom sent an innocuous little email that said only, “A true test of my love of Indiana Jones rip-offs” and had a link to the JACK HUNTER trilogy on Amazon. What the heck? How could an entire trilogy of Indiana Jones-lite make it surreptitiously to the shelves past our highly trained noses? That day (February 22, 2017) might be a day we both soon regret as I said, “Man, you sound like you are getting the itch to do a follow up on our Indiana Jones coverage.” Y’all know about the itch and soon our fates were sealed like the Well of Souls (ah, boo yourself!) as we were feverishly compiling a list of Jonesploitation for part deux: INDIANA JUNKIE AND THE TEMPLE OF BOX OFFICE RECEIPTS!

Sequels are always tough and, to be honest, we might have gotten a little rusty as we’ve slacked on the blog in the last couple of years. Hell, it has been four years (!!!) since our last big theme week (the glorious look at EXTRA LARGE starring Bud Spencer, RIP). But life got in the way and soon we were updating the blog less and less (naturally, this lack of productivity can only be deduced to the assumption that Tom and I must have been in jail, as Indiana Bonehead Steven Millan theorized[online in a group{where he posts his crazy thoughts}]). Nope, like Harrison Ford, we just got older and lazier...and crashed a few private one-man planes. But we decided to whip things back into shape and over the last few months dug up a bunch of other Indiana Jones wannabe relics that deserve (or maybe don’t deserve) the attention of our readers. Do we have readers? Do people still read? Naturally, we’ll be starting off with the JACK HUNTER trilogy since that is what got the itch going. Then we are going to jump all over the map with efforts from the UK to Australia to India to Turkey (that last country’s name might be the most appropriate for this overview). And, yes, you pervs we will be covering some porn too. Don’t worry, plenty of framegrabs. We’ll leave no ancient video stone unturned as we get the band back together and start up our first sequel theme week all these years later. Hey, it worked out great with INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008), right? Wait, better not answer that one…

Will: How did I get roped into this?

Tom: Don't worry, everything is fine.

Read More