Kung Fury (2015)

There’s a scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off where the principal, Ed Rooney, is out looking for Bueller.  In the scene, Rooney is talking to a man watching a baseball game.  Rooney asks the score, to which the man replies that both teams have yet to score.  When Rooney asks who’s winning, the man tells him The Bears.  Those that have no interest in sports might miss that The Bears are a football team.  However, you can still get part of the joke, as the score is tied.  That’s kind of how it is with Kung Fury.

The short film satirizes 80’s technology and culture.  The video quality is similar to that of VHS, with the rolling distortions and intermittent static.  Phones are the bulky, poorly designed monstrosities that you’d expect of 1985.  Dialogue is also the poorly designed monstrosity that you’d expect of 1985.  Those of us that grew up in the 1970s and 1980s will get a lot of the references.  Those that were born later probably won’t.  This isn’t to say that the movie is without humor.  My concern would be that many of the references will go over the heads of some audience members.   

The story is about a man, called only Kung Fury, who is a police officer in Miami in 1985.  He’s called in to defeat an arcade game that’s come to life and is killing people.  He saves the day, but of course, the police chief is having none of it.  An entire city block was destroyed and it’s all Kung Fury’s fault.  The chief is assigning Kung Fury a new partner, Triceracop, but Kung Fury would rather quit than take on a new partner.  (We learn that he lost his old one around the time that he picked up his kung fu powers.)

Before Kung Fury can leave the station, it’s shot up by none other than Adolf Hitler, the worst criminal of all time.  The amazing part is that Hitler is shooting up the station over one of those bulky 80s cell phones.  King Fury is able to shoot back and stop Hitler.  He now realizes that his only choice is to go back in time to stop Hitler.  He’s helped by Hackerman, who is able to hack time.  Kung Fury goes back too far and finds himself in the Viking Era, where women had big weapons and rode even bigger animals.

Fortunately, Thor is able to send him to the right time and place, where Kung Fury is able to dispatch with several dozen Nazi troops.  Hitler shoots Kung Fury, leaving it to Thor, Hackerman, Triceracops and a few others to seemingly save the day.  Hackerman is even able to hack away the bullets and save Kung Fury’s life.  The day is saved and everyone returns to their own time.

The entire plot reeks of 80’s references.  Aside from the VHS filter on the movie, the colors are as dull as you might expect.  The dialogue is similarly dull.  Every 80’s buddy-cop movie had the angry lieutenant/captain.  There was always that one scene where the main cop got chewed out.  The Nazi battle scene is even similar to the side-scrolling games of the era.  The script seems to play on a lot of the tropes of the era.

If you’re old enough, you may have heard of the bulky phones, which are featured twice in the movie.  The arcade game coming to life is probably going to look silly, regardless.  I’m not really sure what this is referencing in particular.  I think it’s meant to be silly, but I could be mistaken.

I will say that the nostalgia factor is dialed in almost perfectly.  There are a few cases where the CGI is barely visible, but it’s easy enough to push that to the side.  The jokes aren’t repeated to the point where they become old.  IMDb lists an upcoming sequel, Kung Fury II:  The Movie.  I’m not sure what that’s going to look like.  If it’s a feature film, they’re going to have to find more humor or else risk repeating themselves.  Then again, isn’t that what history is known for?

IMDb page

Click (2006)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


When I first saw the coming attractions for this movie, I had no intention of seeing it. I’m not a fan of Adam Sandler and felt that Click would be too goofy of a movie for me to really enjoy it. Then, a coworker saw it. He said that it was a lot more serious than most of Sandler’s movies, but still had its moments. It was then that I began to wonder how bad it could really be.

The movie is about Michael Newman (played by Sandler) who can’t keep track of all the remotes that he has. One night, he sets out to find a universal remote. He ends up in Bed, Bath & Beyond, where he meets Morty (Christopher Walken) in the ‘Beyond’ section. Morty has a truly universal remote, which allows Michael to control the universe. He can mute his dog, fast forward over arguments with his wife and even make his boss (and everyone else) speak Spanish, French or any other language.

When he gets this remote, Michael thinks that there’s no possible down side. He can skip ahead to the end of an unpleasant dinner or go ahead a few months to that next promotion. The trouble is that he’s missing out on a lot of things. (The wait for his next promotion turns out to be a year instead of two or three months.) It turns out that the remote creates a whole set of new problems, and Morty isn’t willing to take it back.

Now, I have to say that regardless of how serious the movie is, it’s still an Adam Sandler movie. As my coworker pointed out, Sandler just had to make a joke during the most serious point of the movie. This could have been a totally serious movie and Sandler could have handled it quite well without making too many jokes.

I’m not saying that I didn’t like the humor. It’s just that I don’t think that Sandler will ever break away from what I initially expected of the movie. There were a lot of funny parts, many of which made it into the trailers. Come to think of it, this is one of the few movies that I’ve seen where the plot does seem to stick to what was presented in the coming attractions. There was a comedic slant to most of the movie. There were a few things that I won’t spoil for you, but I do think that if you liked the trailer, you’ll like the movie.

I don’t think that the movie is appropriate for younger children. Although there was no nudity, there were a few adult moments. For instance, the Newman family has a dog that’s particularly fond of a plush toy. You might want to watch the movie before deciding whether or not your children should watch it.

As for older audiences, I’ll give this movie four stars. It’s not perfect, but it was definitely better than I expected. 

IMDb page

Starcrash (1978)

Note:  I’m going to give away major details, including the ending.  If you’re not into spoilers, you may want to skip reading this until you’ve seen the movie.


Shortly after I was born, Star Wars came out.  A lot of things happened as a result.  Most of these things were movies similar to Star Wars.  Paramount was prompted to scrap a TV show to make a Star Trek movie.  Battlestar Gallactica was made.  There were other movies and TV shows, many of which have faded off into the background.  I might not have known about Starcrash had it not been for badmovies.org.  There’s good reason for that.

The movie starts with a ship looking for Count Zarth Arn, an evil-overlord wannabe, who has this weapon that can drive people insane.  When the ship closes in on Zarth Arn, it’s attacked by these red blobs.  Three people manage to escape, leaving the ship to crash and burn.  We also have two people, Stella Star and Akton, trying to evade the police.  They’re caught and sentenced to life in prison. 

Stella manages to escape from prison only to discover that she’s being released by The Emperor of the Galaxy to find the ship.  It’s pretty important; his son, The Prince of the Galaxy, the only heir to the Empire, is on that ship.  Hopefully, he managed to make it to one of those escape pods.  Oh, and it turns out that Akton knew all about this.  He has precognitive abilities.

So, Akton and Stella are off under the watchful eyes of Police Chief Thor and Robot Sherriff Elle.  (Elle has a southern accent, so I’ve taken to calling him Southern Elle.)  They manage to find the first pod on a a sandy planet of Amazonian women.  How do we know they’re Amazonian?  Who else would build a giant robot with breasts?  They try to kill Elle and actually capture Stella.  Stella is taken to their leader, who’s in with The Evil Count.  Elle didn’t actually die, though.  He’s able to save Stella and make it back to the ship, but not before meeting the aforementioned giant robot.

The next pod is on an ice planet.  Elle and Stella are once again sent out to locate the pod, leaving Thor to knock out Akton and reveal himself to be one of The Evil Count’s minions.  Thor’s plan is to leave Elle and Stella to freeze to death.  Being that Akton can see into the future, he saw the whole thing coming and was able to prepare.  In a stunning comeback, he beats Thor and lets Elle and Stella back in.

With Thor no longer in the picture, Elle is left to see Stella and Akton to the third planet.  It turns out that this is the planet with the mysterious death blobs we saw in the beginning.  The party survives to meet the natives, who subsequently beat the circuits out of Elle, leaving Stella to run and find this masked guy who can repel the natives. With a light saber, no less.  Oh, and it turns out that he’s played by David Hasselhoff.  This fact alone makes the movie worth sitting through.  Those that grew up in the 80s may remember a show called Knight Rider.  Seeing Michael Knight wearing just a little too much makeup and waving around a light stick is definitely worth the price of admission.

It also turns out that this is where The Evil Count’s weapon is based.  The party manages to find it, only to have the Count show up and set the entire planet to autodestruct.  Fortunately, the Emperor isn’t going to let his son die.  He has the technology to stop the flow of time just long enough to explain what he’s doing and get everyone off the planet.  (Well, almost everyone.  Akton has outlived his usefulness and fades off into a low-end light show.)

So, now that the Prince of the Galaxy is saved, the Emperor can get the business of properly defeating the Count.  This proves to be difficult.  It eventually takes a last-ditch effort to defeat the Count, thus saving the day.  Most of the major characters live happily ever after.

As I said, I found this through badmovies.org.  This is not a movie to be taken seriously.  You know a movie is going to be bad when the movie uses the same shot of space over and over again.  Not only that, the shot has way more stars than one would expect to see.  Yes, there are stellar nurseries out there that have a lot of stars, but I wouldn’t expect to see that many stars that many times.  Add to this the obvious use of models.  It’s almost laughable.

Akton was an interesting character in that he was obviously what’s called a McGuffin.  His only purpose was to serve as Deus Ex Machina whenever the characters got into trouble.  He mentions that revealing the future is illegal, which implies that they’ve had to deal with the issue.  However, it’s perfectly ok for him to see the bad guys coming and do something about it himself.

Then, there are The Emperor and his son.  If you were the ruler of the galaxy, why would you let your only heir out in battle?  You’d think that this would afford him some protection.  Yes, he’s serving with a military crew, but it’s a dangerous situation he’s going into.  You didn’t have to be Akton to see something like this coming.

Oh, and why would the Count destroy the planet with his megaweapon on it?  Did he have others?  He stated that the whole thing was a ruse to lure the Emperor to the planet, but that didn’t seem to go that well.  You’d think you’d have a backup weapon, especially a weapon that powerful.

This is one of those movies I’d recommend for a good laugh.  Very little is objectionable.  The only notable exception is seeing Stella in some rather revealing clothing.  I was able to get this streaming through Netflix, which meant I didn’t have to waste a lot of time or effort on it.  Also, it was made in Italy, which explains some of the poor dubbing.  (There’s not much, but it is noticeable in places.)  It’s not a great movie, but it is watchable if you don’t expect much from it.

IMDb page