President Ford and the Deadites

Movie Reviews

Well Tonight I watched a couple of films over at the home of my good friend Jackson Irish. It had been awhile sense we had gotten together for some movie watching and I guess we decided to start at the top of our list with a couple of A movies. The first movie we watched is one he had been building up so some time, the Bruce Campbell classic Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness. This is the third and final film in the 'Evil Dead Trilogy' which I believe started out as low budget horror and ended up as campy comedy/adventure. Clips from the first 'evil dead' film were used in one of my favorite films Donnie Darko, that combined with Campbells oddly moving embodiment of Elvis in Bubba Ho-Tep fueled my desire to see this film.

The first three minutes or so of the film recap the events of the first two films, most relevant among the occurrences in these movies being the discovery of an evil 'book of the dead', the death of main character Ash's girlfriend and the loss of his hand (which had 'gone bad' and was briefly replaced with a chainsaw). In this movie the evil unleashed by the book sucks Ash, his car and a tree back into 14th century England, were after a brief misunderstanding he is accepted as a prophesied savior figure sent to save the land from the evil Deadites, which are generally shown as walking skeletons done in Ray Haryhausen style. Most of this movie does not make a lot of sense but it is funny and entertaining and I wouldn't mind seeing more of its type.

Also seen by me for the first time this night is the 1997 film Air Force One. The movie stars aging action hero Harrison Ford as tough as nails American President James Marshall, who is returning home from Russia with his family (onboard the films name sake vessel) after giving a policy changing speech in Moscow on terrorism. The plane is taken over by a group of Kazaykstani terrorists (boy that country is a thorn in the side of fictional presidents) disguised as a Russian news crew and a treacherous Xander Berkely, all at the behest of the late 90's favorite villain Mr. Gary Oldman. The Kaziks take about fifty hostages and in intend to use them to force the US government to put pressure on a weak Russian president to release a recently apprehend Kazik general who is bent on genocide and the re-establishment of a Russian empire.

However the terrorist should have seen more Harrison Ford movies, I mean if the fake President in question was played by Michaell Douglas, John Travolta or even James Cromwell they might have succeeded, but no against Indiana Jones/Hon Solo/Jack Ryan. While he should have exited the plane via escape pod "but kicking president" Marshall stays onboard to personally execute his foreign policy, proto-24 style action and suspense follow. This film is great for what it is and I'm glade that I finally saw it. Lastley 'President Ford and the Deadites' would be a great name for a band.