Ever since I started watching Hercules in the Paramount Pictures' Action Pack, I began to take more and more interest in the work of Sam Raimi after Army of Darkness. The director has a great body of work after the Evil Dead trilogy (looking at you, Cleopatra 2525) and hit the big time with Spider-Man. While Spider-Man is great, my mind still remembers a time when the gods were cruel and plagued mankind with suffering and lands in turmoil cried out for heroes. Most lands preferred Lucy Lawless' Xena, but I preferred Kevin Sorbo.
I don't know if it's just that he's a pretty man or if chicks in the Hellenic Period were easy, but Mr. Sorbo has brought more babes to bed as Hercules than Captain Kirk in Star Trek. When Mr. Sorbo left the Greek world, he ended up in a world created by Star Trek's creator Gene Roddenberry called Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. There, he's Dylan Hunt, captain of the Commonwealth Fleet's warship called the Andromeda Ascendant. He's the only Commonwealth officer to exist after 300 years and he wants to rebuild the lost government with the help of his Rag-Tag Crew™. Two members of his new crew are the human pilot Beka Valentine (played by Lisa Ryder) and the ship's android avatar that goes by the name "Rommie" (played by raging Anglo-Filipina hotness Lexa Doig). Now, I bring up these two characters from Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda to illustrate a weird coincidence that happened in the casting of the tenth installment of the Friday the 13th horror series called Jason X.
Our story shows up at the capture of our main antagonist Jason (played by stunt master Kane Hodder). I'll never know why people think they can just catch Jason, tie him up and be done with it. You can't. The people who have him in custody are government types who are going to dispose of Jason (good idea) by driving him cross-country to a dumpsite (bad idea) and getting rid of him there. The doctor on staff for the transport of Jason is Dr. Rowen (Lexa Doig), a woman highly opposed to giving Jason any chance to escape. Don't worry, say the higher-ups on site; he's in chains with guards watching him, he's not going anywhere.
Sure enough, the guard (note the singular form) is killed and Jason goes on a rampage, killing many soldiers and chasing Dr. Rowen about. She tricks Jason into a cryogenic chamber to freeze him for 500 years, but he stabs Rowen through the cryotube and they both are frozen for 500 years. Over the years, mankind destroyed Earth and fled to space. A team of medical students is on a field trip to the dead planet Earth to see what they can find in its ruins. They stumble upon the facility that holds Jason and Dr. Rowen, taking both back to their spaceship in orbit.
While Jason is put on a dissection slab, a machine that regenerates parts via nanotechnology revives Rowen in the ship's sickbay. She wakes up and all she can talk about is Jason. The group of young, nubile and horny med students on the ship, including the introverted Tsunaron (Chuck Campbell) and his confused android KM-14 (Lisa Ryder) tell her that the big guy they found with her is quite dead and he won't be bothering anyone at all.
They could not have been more wrong.
Shortly after dispatching the dissecting student with liquid nitrogen, Jason does his thing and kills teenagers having sex. Then he pulls an Alien and goes for the shadows. The man responsible for the field trip, medical professor Lowe (Jonathon Potts), brought Space Marines to fill out the body count. These doomed and poorly disciplined soldiers follow Sgt. Brodsky (Peter Mensah), a badass soldier dude who knows how to relax. His troops don't know how to act, so they get chopped up and Brodsky gets injured trying to save them. Or something.
Needless to say, the people on board are scared and have no way of beating Jason. Tsunaron and KM-14 are stuck somewhere and they come up with a plan to defeat the Voorhees menace. The method employed was good, but the after-effects couldn�t have been worse. Upon being blown to bits by an enhanced KM-14, Jason lands on the medical regenerator. Since most of his body was blown away in a hail of gunfire that DIDN'T pierce the hull, the regenerator had to make do with metallic parts. After moments of cutting back and forth between Jason's carcass and the completion gauge, Jason is all crazy-ass cyborg. Some more shit happens and half the ship starts to fall apart. The leftover crew makes it over to the other side of the ship to execute a plan to hold Jason off.
The plan is to use the ship's holographic projector to make a fake Crystal Lake campsite and hold Jason there while they escape in an escape pod. Two holographic sluts, who easily have the best lines in the movie, delay Jason from pursuing the survivors. This scene alone is comedy gold.
Jason breaks free of the hologram and almost has his prey when Brodsky shows up and faces off with Jason. This gives the survivors enough time to escape in an escape pod. Not to be discouraged by a life-or-death battle in space, Jason jumps and lands on the escape pod and tries to kill the survivors. Brodsky's there too and lunged after Jason, knocking him off and fighting him as they both fall into the nearby planet's atmosphere. You'd think this was the end of Jason, the way Rowen, KM-14 and Tsunaron celebrated as if he was finally dead. Such a belief would be the end of you, but not the end of the Friday the 13th franchise.
This movie sucked, yet held an immense entertainment factor. It's not a great horror film or even a good B-movie; but it has to be one of the best comedies I've seen in a while.
CHOICE CUTS
- I think it's really funny that, in the context of Andromeda, while Lexa Doig plays a human in Jason X and an android in Andromeda...Lisa Ryder plays an android in Jason X and a human in Andromeda. Weird.
- I was waiting for a cameo by Shamus Harper, Trance Gemini or Tyr Anaszasi at some point, but that'd be too much. There was some nameless black dude in the movie who looked like a younger and not-so-buff Tyr. Maybe he's Tyr's cousin.
- Scenes between Tsunaron and KM-14 are groan inducing, but silly as hell. I'll never know how this movie got a green light.
- I hope I never see Space Marines that incompetent ever again as long as I live.
- Jason going to town on the two hologram girls. Priceless.
- Once again, the Black man saves the day. Brodsky is dead; long live Brodsky!
- Despite the title, Jason Voorhees does not convert to the Nation of Islam.
Tsunaron and his android KM-14 discuss their chances of survival against Jason:
What do you think? Are we going to make it?Once again, Tsunaron and KM-14 share a tender moment as the young genius fits his android with boobs:
The statistical probability of survival is twelve per cent.
Twelve per cent? Can You come up with better odds?
Nope.
Bullshit, KM! That's Bullshit!. Are you telling there's absolutely no chance for us to better our odds?
[KM-14 kisses Tsunaron]
Statistical probability of survival just went up to fifty-three per cent.
You want to go for a hundred?
OK, tell me again why you want boobs?The two hologram girls distract Jason with bad dialogue in this comedy gold moment:
Because Janessa has them! I want some too!
[Tsunaron drops a nipple; it makes a loud KLANG noise]
Hologram 1: Hey, do you want a beer?This movie did not need to be made, yet I am grateful that Hollywood makes movies for the lowest common denominator. Hell, I'd be out of a job if they didn't.
Hologram 2: Or do you wanna smoke some pot?
Hologram 1: Or we can have premarital sex?
[both remove their tops]
Holograms 1 and 2: We love premarital sex!
[Jason enters homicidal rage]
RATING: 2/10
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