Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990)

The idiot-savants at Cannon Film erred on the side of idiot with this stinker sequel to The Delta Force (1986). This time, the Delta Force takes on a drug cartel in a fictional central American country, with Chuck Norris splitting from the pack to rescue hostages being held in a druglord's estate. The plot is taken directly from the "Drugs are Bad" pile of scripts, while the dialogue is free advertising for America's War on Drugs. The acting is bad, and the characters are poorly developed. The officer leading the Delta Force is just a trigger-happy goon, who is just DYING to destroy all the drugs. Yes, Delta Force 2 is another propaganda film. Except this time its pandering and annoying as hell. Not even the action scenes are very much fun. One thing is for sure, Delta Force 2 is more like a boring lecture than a rally-the-troops Budweiser-and-America-the-Beautiful type of film.

3/10

Delta Force, The (1986)

From our favorite 80s production company, Cannon Film, comes what is possibly their finest action film--The Delta Force. Chuck Norris stars as a member of a task force assigned to rescue a planeful of hostages taken by Lebanese terrorists. For some reason, Chuck Norris is given special treatment, one of the perks being a motorcycle that magically has as many rockets as he needs that fire with sniper-like precision. Thrown into the mix is a characteristically 80s score, with layers upon layers of synthesizers and plenty of drum machine for everyone. The Delta Force is essentially an American propaganda film: Not only do you have a special task force that performs its task with barely a single hitch, you've got the hostages happily singing "America the Beautiful" while cracking open Budweisers when they are rescued. Can you get any more American than that?

7/10

Death Warrant (1990)

Death Warrant is an average entry into Jean-Claude Van Damme's filmography. Van Damme plays a cop who, on behalf of some crooked politicians, goes to prison undercover to investigate a string of murders that have taken place. As usual, he duck-walks his way through the picture, mumbling his lines in short heavily-accented phrases, and slings roundhouse kicks like they were the prison cafeteria special. At first, I thought they managed to hide that goose egg on his forehead, but I was sadly mistaken. The main villain (of several) is The Sandman, a menacing, ugly, and virtually invincible serial killer--but he talks too much. The murder method of choice was to "spike" the prisoners through the head, but when Van Damme says it, it sounds like "spank"... which I think is highly appropriate for a Van Damme prison film.

6/10

PS: For you avid Jean-Claude Van Damme fans, JCVD does get naked, but there are no gratuitous ass shots or split kicks. Sorry.

PPS: The girl-partner tells Van Damme at one point, "You're getting wet." He was standing in the rain at the time. It sounded like it was loaded with innuendo. I don't know what she meant.

PPPS: This just in: Death Warrant is actually a Cannon Film! I love Cannon Film!

Masters of the Universe (1987)

From my favorite low-budget production company, Cannon Film, comes the live-action motion picture event of the century! Rejoice, for He-Man, starring Swedish ubermensch Dolph Lundgren, has come to the big screen! Unfortunately, Dolph doesn't get enough screen time to develop as He-Man (and he needed more screen time just to prove that he can emote), but this is alleviated by the awesome screen presence of Frank Langella as Skeletor, the amazing visual effects by Richard Edlund, and a rousing (but highly derivative) score by Rocky-composer Bill Conti. The story is idiotic to the max and some of the makeup and sound effects are really embarrassing, but it's got enough lightning bolts, laser blasts, sword battles, and explosions to keep even the shortest attention span watching. The Masters of the Universe do a lot of killing in this movie, but the thing they kill best is time!

7/10

Cyborg (1989)

From our favorite 80s production company, Cannon, comes Cyborg! Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as some kind of generic loner mercenary-type who randomly befriends some worthless frazzy-haired 80s girl. The cyborg hardly plays any part in the film despite apparently being the main plot. The characters are stiff and completely undeveloped. The villain always shouts. The fights are incoherent. This is a film that is truly painful to watch. I couldn't believe that this sloppy mess of a film was given to us by Albert Pyun, the director of the 1982 classic The Sword and the Sorcerer.

As a side note: Mr Pyun, even though I thought this movie was very poorly made, I still hold you in very high regards.

2/10

Lifeforce (1985)

Starting off really strong as a Quatermass-style science fiction film, it quickly devolves into a space-vampire-zombie mashup. The film is moderately entertaining, and the scenes that work work well, but the scenes that don't work are boring or painful to watch. The male lead was the reason for most of the bad scenes. Luckily, there's a good period of time in the first half of the film where he is not present. The high point of this film is the special effects work. This film is only slightly better than the typical Golan-Globus Cannon film (who set the bar for consistently low quality 80s films). Also present is an inappropriate but by-no-means bad score from Henry Mancini. Oh yeah, the space vampire is a naked chick.

6/10

Flash Gordon (1980)

Delightfully campy with a score by Queen. The art direction is probably the best aspect of the film and the special effects are commendable (the sheer amount of effects shots for 1980 is impressive). A thin plot, some terrible dialogue (apparently mostly improvised), and questionable acting makes this ripe cult film fodder, but ultimately, it probably isn't worth your time. That's unfortunate because I thought Max Von Sydow as Emperor Ming was casting gold.

5/10