Here's my review of the week and it's not Story of Ricki / Riki-O yet, as I'm waiting to see it with my best friend who is a big fan of the TV show OZ and Dragonball Z and that movie has the best of both worlds!
COBRA (1986)
Starring: The Obvious and Brigette Nielsen aka Red Sonja aka the 'actress' that perhaps nailed the coffin to the revelations of Arnold Schwarzenegger's unfaithful relationship to Maria Shriver, aka She-Skeletor.
IMDB Synopsis: A tough-on-crime street cop must protect the only surviving witness to a strange murderous cult with far reaching plans.
Review: I understand now why this is one of the Stallone movies that isn't talked about so much compared to Rocky and Rambo. It's pure 80's predictable action flick that doesn't even deserve the R18+ rating it has now. The action is very tame just like Mad Max but it lacks the hard-hitting storyline or characters that would make it a memorable action movie.
Stallone stars as Marion Cobretti, aka 'Cobra', a badass cop that drives a 1950's black Mercury and never misses a shot at a bad guy with his seemingly unlimited round pistol and laser-sighted scoped sub-machine gun. He's so badass that he has perhaps the most badass line any cop could say, as quoted here:
Night Slasher: The court is civilized, isn't it pig?
Cobretti: But I'm not. This is where the law stops and I start - sucker!
So things get a little tough on Marion when he has to protect Brigette Nielsen, a model who witnesses a crazed cult with the most basic beliefs in Social Darwinism murder an innocent woman. This cult, known as the New World Order is led by the Night Slasher (Brian Thompson, aka Shao Kahn from Mortal Kombat Annihilation aka the guy that T100 steals clothes from at the beginning of The Terminator but I'll refer to him as Shao Kahn from now on), who whenever he's not slashing innocents with gang of slashers is having his cult ceremony in some abandoned warehouse where all members proceed to bang some axes together for dramatic effect but in the end comes across as goofy. Shao Kahn spends the majority of the movie trying to kill Nielsen but keeps on failing due to the interventions of Cobra and his partner Gonzales (our comedic relief in the form of a sugar addict that's much more laid back and doesn't eat all the right foods like Marion does, or isn't so dramatic with his line deliveries).
And that's all the movie is really, not much really happens at all which is why I was majorly disappointed with it and more so with myself for buying it on BluRay for a killer price of $12. It's basically Shao Kahn chasing Red Sonja who is being protected by Suburban Rambo and sugar-fiend Gonazles again and again and always failing. And they don't even get that far geographically in the movie. (SPOILERS AHEAD) She has her first encounter with Shao Kahn at the start of the movie, then she escapes him when he tries to kill her outside of her work. After being admitted to hospital, she then escapes from Shao Kahn again and is taken into a witness protection program that intends to take her out of the city with our 2 hero cops and a corrupt cop that's actually working for Shao Kahn . They make it to a small motel in the country-side and that's it, that's where the last act of the movie takes place. THEY DIDN'T EVEN GET THAT FAR AWAY FROM THE CITY IN THE END. Now usually I'm not fussed when a movie does not go out to many locations but for a movie like this that has so much potential by injecting so much badassery into your main character and a storyline that can offer so much more kickass action scenes it doesn't live up to it in the end which is why maybe the ratings by users on IMDB is a mere 5.5. This movie doesn't feel like a big action flick and feels somewhat cheap compared to your classics like Die Hard. The action scenes weren't even that good in the movie (except in the end). I have a good feeling that the majority of the film's budget went to Stallone's pocket and the unnecessary scene of Red Sonja posing for photo shoots in 80's super-bizarre fashion clothing.
ANd the movie poster is real misleading, sorry to be nit-picking but there is NEVER a scene in the movie where Cobra is using that awesome sub-machine gun and is wearing the sunglasses at the same time. NEVER. We only see him assemble the sub-machine gun in the last 3rd of the movie but by then he's gone all serious meaning he's stopped wearing his glasses.
Now, the ending. If you've seen any 80's typical action movie then you can pretty much predict what happens at the end of this movie so don't get angry at me for talking about this part. The ending showdown between Shao Kahn and Rocky is a combination of funny, predictable and yet badass.
Before the two get into their final fist-fight in the showdown Shao Kahn starts mocking Cobra about the fact that he has to take him in as he himself has rights. Cobra though says that he ain't bound to the law and he literally uppercuts Shao Kahn in a Rocky-fashion onto a hook that's on a moving conveyour belt that takes him into a door-frame that literally has flames shooting inwards at every single angle possible. Talk about a fatality!
All in all , this movie gets a mere 5 from me. Average. Not bad. Nor is it good. Only watch if you got NOTHING else to do.
Originally Posted by Paulbot
). This lady is the embodiment of evil! La Femme is largely what makes this film so utterly insane. I've not seen this actor before but she does an amazing job, I'm struggling to think of a more effective villain in recent times and I got nothing. The way she dresses in black with a matching corset, those facial expressions *shudder*, her witch-like presence, her body-shape even.
What makes her more fascinating is that she often shows her vulnerable side reminding us that this is a normal person (albeit a very fubar in the head one).
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I seriously didn't like the direction they took with the (briefly masterful) Alien series. 