The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

Summit Entertainment, 124 min., Dir. David Slade

First of all, let me address all of the "I'm too cool to see this film" people out there. One, you probably were bawling watching Toy Story 3 or Up, so don't try to pretend that you only watch high art, "grown up films." Two, get out there and live a little; go see a movie that you wouldn't normally see, if nothing else just to bag on it or, maybe enjoy it. Three, if you have a girlfriend/wife who wants to see this film and your going to be a recalcitrant crybaby about seeing it, just man up already. It's not going to be the best two hours of film you've ever seen, but it can't be worse than watching the Cubs get jacked up again or some piece of s*&t sitcom.

That being said, this is my third Twilight movie, and I still don't like them any more than I used to (sorry). I think (and have had confirmed by fans) that these films have more of a payoff for readers of the books than for the average person who walks in off the street expecting to know what's going on. There is little to no effort made to catch up anyone on what happened in the last two films (the later of which I barely remember), and I suppose that's a product of internet/home viewing culture. Makers of the movie just expect that if you're going to see part three of a six part series that you will have the requisite knowledge to understand it. If you ask me, it wouldn't hurt serious watchers to sit through thirty seconds of recap ala Star Wars style scrolling text (or maybe a voice over here and there).

In any case, just like Twilight part two, whatever that was called, I was completely lost. There are, by my count, six or seven vampires and six or seven "shape shifters" (I learned they are not werewolves from listening to AV Talk). They all have back stories, only a few of which were explained via flashbacks during the film. Characters exchange poignant glances, and I suppose we're expected to know why, but I sure as hell didn't. There are more examples of the bewilderment that a non-book reader will experience, but I'll omit them and say that you should not expect to fully understand how or why ancillary characters behave the way they do.

The love interest sequence in this film is essentially two stalkers competing over the target of their obsession, and (without spoiling anything) having to coexist so that said target is not obliterated by an army of obsessive stalkers who want her dead, or something like that. The plot is really secondary in this film. I got the repeated notion that if you're watching the film, it's not to be impressed by storyline or dialogue, both of which are lacking and dimwitted. The fact that there are vampires and "shape shifters" is also secondary, as they could really be any characters as far as I'm concerned (extraterrestrials and extraterrestrial fighters, cult members and papal soldiers, Cubs fans and Sox fans, etc.). If this ambiguity is intentional, I've yet to discover the allegorical relationship to politics or religion that is concealed within the narrative. The stakes essentially come down to which side will the protagonist end up on, something book readers already know and something I frankly don't care about.

The on-screen characters do little to make us care about their fate. The acting from all parties involved is wooden, especially from Kristen Stewart (Bella). She mumbles her way through yet another movie, and her flashes of anger are about as intense as the anger expressed after dropping one's keys down a storm drain. The chastity sequences are something else. I'm not sure where this wave of abstinence heavy tween entertainment came from, but it is definitely entertaining. The reason they don't have sex in this film is because Edward is "from a different time." Really?? Are you that secluded that for 150 years you haven't noticed a change in cultural values, especially after attending one high school after another for that entire time?? He definitely watched some James Dean movies, since his pompadour and clothing seem to mimic that style in the first film.

On a final note, I would like to point out that these are the stupidest immortal people I have ever seen portrayed on screen. Most vampires become cultural paragons, masters of music, art, literature, or science. These people act the way they look. Dr. Cullen, who learned to be a doctor hundreds of years ago, doesn't seem too concerned with advancing medial arts and only really has that talent to justify having someone bandage up Bella after one injury or another. All of the rest just seem content to look cool and drink animal blood, occasionally playing a really stupid game of baseball (that ridiculousness alone warrants a viewing of the first film). The filmmakers at lest felt that it would be wise to give some of these characters a reason for existing this time around, however slim those reasons might be. I don't feel like this film enterprise needs to be as trivial and closely targeted, as vampire films have often found a way into a wider audience base. The exclusivity of having a single audience might appeal to the target market better, I suppose. I myself found little to like in this film.

2/10: I'd love to be one of those supporting characters who just sits there and says nothing then takes home a big, fat check

In case you're wondering, here's how I rate the other two films:

Twilight: 4/10

As I said above, the hilarity of some of the sequences is just great. The acting is terrible, but if you like vampire films you could find something enjoyable about this film. At least the notion of a war between vampires and Native Americans is kind of cool, though never really developed.

Twilight Part Two (New moon??): 1/10

Not worth watching at all. You can probably read the synopsis and fill in the rest. The film introduces the idea of the "Voltari" (I don't even care to look up the correct spelling) which is a Rome-based vampire council, that has yet to do anything cool but has Dakota Fanning as a member (awesome). The film is utterly forgettable, as it takes over the middle story mentality of just killing time until the conclusion even though it is only the second entry.

Countdown to Zero (2010)

Magnolia Films, 91 min., Dir. Lucy Walker
As seen at a free screening

I had some expectations for this film going into it, mainly that shot of people in a park which flashes to white and freezes (which actually happens at some point toward the end of the film), and a lot of clocks counting down to zero, which also actually happens, several times. My expectations didn't totally match with what the film presented, but that didn't necessarily make it a bad film.

Much of the emphasis of the film is in explaining how close we are to a nuclear disaster. It draws it's organization scheme from (some might know) the "sword of Damocles" speech John F. Kennedy made to the United Nations, where he stated nuclear disaster could be caused by "accident, miscalculation, or madness." This was perhaps not the best way to organize the film, as the discussion seemed less focused in the "madness" section and involved much more complex issues than just crazy people with bombs.

A lot was missing: an in-depth discussion of the history of atomic weapons and why they were created, a history of popular resistance to nuclear proliferation, a close look at the United States' use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese people in World War II and how the rest of the world reacted to that usage of nuclear weapons, which factors into the history of nuclear weapons. The filmmakers instead chose to focus on the multiplicity of ways that nuclear disasters could occur apart from a nuclear exchange between warring nations, with a special emphasis on the ease of obtaining, smuggling, and incorporating nuclear material into a terrorist weapon.

I started out saying to myself "I knew all that," but upon reflecting there were some startling facts presented in the film that I didn't know. The film is mostly interviews with experts (although there are interviews with Jimmy Carter, Robert McNamara, and Michail Gorbachev which either too short or edited down too much). There was also a lot of padding. Examples include staged closed caption television shots (which might look familiar to British viewers), endless shots of a blast radius over different world cities, and equally endless shots of nuclear missiles launching from silos.

In terms of the theoretical side of the film, some of the most interesting theories involved how it's impossible to predict some situations, and just having nuclear weapons endangers everyone in the world by virtue of randomness; once a weapon is detonated, Pandora's box is opened and our whole way of life shot to hell. Most people will agree with that line of thought. I also know a few people who maintain that we can't give up nuclear weapons because we would be powerless against a whole host of threats (failed nuclear nation states, terrorist use of nuclear weapons, etc.). To be clear, I don't subscribe to that opinion, but I did not see a whole lot in the film that would change the mind of someone who does.

In our typical hour plus discussion following a documentary, my wife and I got to the subject of how this film compares with other documentaries we've seen in the last four years or so. I felt like some of the issues raised in the film should feel personal, but the filmmakers did not breach the threshold of actually making the threat real and immediate to individuals in a way like (another Magnolia Pictures Co. film) Food Inc. (2010) does. It all comes back to that tricky issue of individual change that I talked about in other documentary reviews.

I won't drone on about An Inconvenient Truth because I could sit here all day and proselytize about how it's the perfect documentary in many ways and how its arguments are crafted elegantly and for maximum effect, but it does have a discernible effect on viewers. The big way it does this is by convincing the viewer that he or she is involved in the problem and can exercise personal power to effect change. It also equates the value of a minor change with having collective power, and those changes are only necessary on inconsequential levels. In other words, for a documentary to be effective (in my opinion) it must convince the viewer that:

1. a change in behavior is warranted,
2. the path to change or the actions necessary are clear, and
3. the change is worthwhile on an individual level (it must be at least worth the individual cost incurred by the change).

All three factors are important. For example, Food Inc. makes the consumer aware that his or her individual decisions are what makes the crooked machine run. Is a change warranted? Yes, people and animals are mistreated and our health suffers as a result of the current system. Is there a clear path to effect the change? Yes, we must consume food products that are produced by a better system, one which treats workers and animals ethically and does not create products that are injurious to our health. Is the change worthwhile on an individual level (i.e. should I change the way I consume food?). No. Organic food products that are ethically manufactured are unaffordable for most people without means.

Now, as the credits role and options are flashed on screen for individual action, I ask you, isn't there an inherent hypocrisy on the part of the film makers by demonstrating that the path to an individual change of behavior is blocked to the average citizen, but then having an expectation that the viewer will have any interest in statements like "buy food from your local farmer"?

Other films do this to better effect. To once again pull out Inconvenient Truth (for the last time) the path to change is simple and often causes the viewer to incur no cost: throw your can into a recycling bin instead of throwing it away. Hey, I can do that! IC is more concerned with convincing people a change is warranted, but the stakes are so low for many of the changes that I can say "Yo Al Gore, I don't believe in global warming, but I can throw my Clamato can into a recycling bin because you asked nicely." And yes, if you don't believe in global warming, your punishment should be drinking only Clamato, forever.

I won't put all of my problems with the documentary film explosion onto this film, because it is mostly in the genre of raising awareness of an issue instead of promoting individual changes in behavior (despite the invitation to text "demand zero" to 97999 or whatever that message was at the end of the film). However, I'm inclined to believe that first of all, few members of the audience were in favor of nuclear weapons who attended this screening, despite the fact that the film was free to watch. Secondly, I feel no more engaged with the issue than I have always felt before the film. There was some talk bandied about at the conclusion of the film which stressed how popular support caused reductions in nuclear weapons, but it's basically saying if there is a revolutionary amount of people who organize, band together, and elect new representatives to government, we can change any policy! Weak.

6/10: If you're in the mood for a double feature, watch Dr. Strangelove, then watch this film. I think they would pair off nicely.

Let the Right One In (2008)

EFTI, 115 min., Dir. Tomas Alfredson, Sweedish with English Sub- and Super-titles, available on Netflix Instant Queue

Something about this film resonates with those of us who have lived in a place where there is a desolate winter, which is anyone in Chicago. There is a strange sense of foreboding provided by the deserted natural landscapes, reinforced by the performances and carefully calculated presentation of the child actors in the lead roles. Every detail is attended to, and there is no escaping the longing for a sense of relief at every moment in the film: a sense that everything will be sorted out. The tension is exquisite.

It probably doesn't hurt that I watched this film during a thunderstorm, which provided the appropriate, morose backdrop, occasionally punctuated with thunder claps for effect. The settings and shots are beautiful, but in an eerie way which reminds one that the starkness of the architecture and landscape mirrors the emotional climate of the characters, cold and subdued.

The innocence and desperation of the protagonist, a 12 year old boy named Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) contrasts with the need for attachment and understanding by the young vampire, a "twelve year old" "girl" named Eli (Lina Leandersson). Oskar is tormented by bullies and emboldened by Eli to defend himself, the irony resting in the fact that the timid girl who prescribes retaliation is herself a merciless predator.

It plays out in a way that should not be ruined for viewers, so I won't talk further of the plot. Of vampire movies, which I rightly or wrongly consider myself a burgeoning aficionado, I highly recommend it. The plot action and acting is straight as an arrow, so don't expect laughs outside of the infrequent comic relief. Vampire rules are redefined along conventional lines, so there's no learning curve. I hate to bring up Nadja since I will reference that in my Bowie roundup, but the lighting and shots in the film are similar. There is an effort (in my opinion) to avoid face shots in scenes in order to build contrast between the activities of the everyday and the visually stunning shots that break into the consciousness of the viewer later in the film.

The setting and sense of place in the film are unusual. I wasn't sure for a while whether this film takes place in the late 70's / early 80's, or whether props and wardrobe are meant to convey social class (e.g. Napoleon Dynamite). There are some political hints tossed in, but my Swedish history is a bit rusty. I couldn't really pinpoint the language either, which was a distraction since I felt I was missing some supporting details that a European viewer might pick up on.

I felt throughout the whole movie that there was an unsettling undercurrent surrounding each character. In that way, the film was very Hemingway-esque. You saw just enough of the characters to interject your own back story, rather than sitting through an extra hour of film. This is really a film that you should see for yourself, so I'll recommend a viewing.

8/10

The Swarm (1978)

Warner Bros., 155 min. (extended version)/116 min. (theatrical), Dir. Irwin Allen

The first thing you'll notice in the byline above is that there is an extended version and theatrical release. I did not know this when I queued it up on Netflix, so I watched the bloated 155 min. extended version which included a subplot involving a romantic contest between two middle aged men for a retirement age elementary school principle. Yikes, nothing makes like good watchin' more than two middle aged dudes wooing a southern belle, if you're into Evening Shade that is. I, however, wanted angry mutant bees, some great one-liners, and super-ridiculous pseudoscience.

The film opens with a special forces team landing on a nuclear missile base in Texas. Quizzically, the special forces team is operating on the assumption that a commie biological weapon strike killed the staff, yet you can see exposed skin between the sleeves of their "bio-hazard suits" (painter's jumpsuits) and black leather driving gloves. Also interesting, before they even know that the threat is bees, they have flame throwers. It will all come together by the end of the review, my friends.

It turns out that a swarm of killer bees stung most everyone in the base to death, and Michael Caine, an entomologist and the foremost bee expert in the world, happens to be out by that desert wasteland when this goes down. The President places him in charge of the military forces with one mission: kill the bees. Oh, and the base is right next to a town who's main industry is growing flowers. And it's blooming season.

Now I'm not saying I could write or direct a motion picture, but it must be hard to make both Michael Caine and Peter Fonda look like the two worst actors in the world. Caine essentially has three gears in the film:

• Crazy bee guy: "The war we've been fearing is finally here," referring to a war between Africanized bees and humans, something still that keeps me up at night


• Angry at the U.S. Army guy: "LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING GENERAL!!!" If you watch for nothing else, watch for the countless screaming arguments between Caine and Illinois' own, Richard Wildmark


• The guy who doles out conciliatory lines like "there was nothing we could do," something he'll get ample opportunity to say

Much like a lot of these bloated seventies action films, the plan is to get the smart, middle-aged white men into a control room to hash this thing out over black coffee and cigarettes. This film is even worse, as the women are pretty much window dressing. The one female lead who does something is billed as Helena (Katherine Ross) in the credits, despite the fact that she is an Air Force lieutenant and a doctor. She also saves a bunch of men from bees by dragging them into a bunker and escapes by crawling through an air conditioning vent, which is not shown as the film begins in medias rez. She doesn't even get a "way to go" for that one. I'm pretty sure a man would have gotten a medal, or maybe just a pat on the back, or something. But she's just a woman, a woman who gets replaced as chief doctor when a crisis hits and basically becomes Peter Fonda's lab assistant / ward nurse. She does provide someone to protect from danger and flirt with later on in the film, though.

This movie is based off a novel by the late Sci-Fi writer Arthur Herzog. I couldn't help but think about The Andromeda Strain when I watched this film as they share the same basic premise: both films present a foreign threat that has no foreseeable solution; both films involve gathering the best scientists in the world and sequestering them in a secret military installation to develop a solution. Whereas Andromeda takes the nerdy intellectual route, The Swarm eventually turns into another film about communists invading America, but with bees instead of a Soviet-Cuban alliance. The bees are constantly treated like an invading army and personified, allegedly possessing strategies and tactics designed to beat the military. As they make their way toward Huston (and there is no reason at all given as to why they're are going there) the Army officers keep referring to them as "The Africans." Don't even ask me why that is. I guess you can't refer to them as the bees, seeing as you might confuse them with the Eurasian or Australian bee armies.

Let's see, so far we've had mutant bees and some great one-liners delivered in full screaming fury by Michael Caine, now all we need is some really bad science. How's this: the bees sting some people in a nuclear power plant and, as a result, the plant explodes. Check - and - mate.

**Spoiler Alert**All the 40+ minutes of character development for the townspeople is pretty much wasted as they die in a train accident halfway through the film while trying to evacuate. There are survivors, but I guess at 155 lean minutes, the director felt it would be better not to include a 15 second scene telling us if any of them were the supporting characters from earlier.

The bees eventually begin "the occupation of Huston" and the Army does the only logical thing: start burning the city down with, you guessed it, flame throwers!! I take you now to their base of operations downtown, 11 p.m., a high rise building with floor to ceiling windows:

"Hey Private Smith, you really shouldn't be playing catch with that brick inside our glass fortress becaus--oh shit!! Anyone have insecticide...oh yeah, we tried that 72 minutes earlier in the film and it didn't work. Welp, I had a good run, lots of fun tim--and now I'm getting stung to death..."

Stupidly enough, the bees get in through the elevator, sting some dude, and as he's dying he breaks the window. Thanks, man. Way to die in the most selfish way possible.

In a brilliant piece of writing, Caine and Ross go from fleeing the bees that are loose in the building, bees so deadly that they can drop a full grown man with one sting mind you, and in the very next shot they are in a jeep, driving in an airfield, in the daytime. I've only seen one other movie that so blatantly disregards a viewers intelligence¹ and just spreads some frosting over the gaping hole in the cake.

The brilliant plan to kill the bees: spill a bunch of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, lure the bees there with their mating sound, then light it on fire.

4/10: If bees invade, at least we've got one part of the solution taken care of already

¹That film was The Core (2003). For some BS reason a team of scientists needs to make it to the core of our planet, and most of the crew dies along the way from numerous, extremely boring geological dangers. After the mission is accomplished (no spoiler alert because you won't want to see this film at all), the two remaining terranauts (I love that word) go from the core of our planet to the ocean floor with a caption that reads "three days later." Great ending. I just wish the whole film would have been the title screen, then a screen that says "a month and a half later," and then the credits.

Note: I was reading some Shakespeare related stuff, but I plan on watching some movies this weekend and even reviewing some new releases next week

Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later (2007)

DCTV, approx. 70 min., Dir. Brent Renaud

To believe a desegregated school exists is a myth, at least that is the message behind Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later. And after seeing the film, I have little to disagree with.

First and foremost, the film focuses on socioeconomic privileges and how they play out in our secondary education system. While the filmmakers may have felt that they were beating the viewers over the head with ideas like "how do parents attend PTA meetings when they work two jobs?" or "how is it that the golf team is all white at a school that is predominantly black?" they probably could have made more probing assertions about the nature of segregation at Little Rock Central. It seems an impossible contradiction, but I want documentary films to be both subtle and explicit, objective and inflammatory, which is something I haven't come to grips with yet as a consumer or critic, I suppose.

Persons in the film seem divorced from the production qualities in their narratives, more so than other films I have seen. There is also a surreal quality of hearing and seeing biased perspectives that are out of touch with reality, a feeling that is brought to a head when a child in one classroom is asked by one of the original students who fought to be integrated to point out the historical irony in her classroom (seated to one side, the black students, and on the other, the white students). As with everything, the rhetorical effects of presentation loom large, but work on a more subtle and basic level in this film.

A positive is born of the passivity demonstrated by the subjects of the film: the opportunity for a viewer to feel the frustration at trying to forcibly integrate two cultures who are the products of their progenitors' mistrust and economic trajectories. The irony for the viewer is that we can see the sociocultural factors that lead to their opinions, but do nothing to interject. The self-replication of systemic segregation is also demonstrated in the attitudes and opinions of those interviewed.

If you are waiting for overt racism to be revealed in any of the film's subjects, don't hold your breath. With every opinion as to why de facto segregation exists (as subjects put it: "two schools inside one school") the viewer must make a determination as to the extent to which different opinions hold merit; oftentimes I was left with the unsatisfying conclusion that people in the film, even if they are lying, believe their explanations to be true. I once read a phrase that went something like this:

The conscience tells me 'I did that,' while the ego says, 'that is not me, I could not have done that.' The ego wins.

Self-perception dominates reality, and what is repeated by the film's subjects ("people tend to associate with people they like regardless of color") supplants the reality, which is that "the people they like" are most often of similar appearance to themselves.

In any case, the attentive viewer can see that race, class, appearance, and socioeconomic status are inextricably linked in terms of a high school education. You need only travel to any CPS school to experience the same frustration for yourself. The issue left unaddressed in the film (due to scope) is the attempt to fix problems associated with underserved members of our society, and that is an issue which should haunt and influence our decisions for our entire lives.

8/10

Moon (2009)

Liberty Films, U.K., 97 min. Dir. Duncan Jones

I tried to see what the deal was with Moon by doing a Google news search, but between Despicable Me and Twilight: 3/4 Harvest Moon, or whatever the new one is, I gave up immediately. I wanted to know where this film came from and how it ended up on my TV since I don't remember any trailers or reviews, but it was in my Redbox list since like last year and is still available there (and on Netflix Instant Que).

The SciFi elements of this film exist to both provide a backdrop and premise for the action, but also to showcase the moral and ethical dilemmas inherent at the film's core. It's hard to summarize without giving away the many revelations at the heart of the film, so I'll merely set the stage for you. Sam Rockwell (Iron Man 2, Choke) plays Sam Bell, a solitary worker on the moon who collects moon rocks from giant skimmers that reminded me a lot of the harvesters in Command and Conquer (I know, supernerd). The moon rocks power "70% of Earth's energy needs" and his job, while incredibly important, is extremely monotonous and drives him to distraction and disinterest. As with most endurance films, things start to break down right around the end of his time there, worrying his only companion: a robot that is ingeniously done up as the type you would see assembling cars, but with artificial intelligence that makes him capable of affection for Sam, even if it is programmed. Anyway, things are looking pretty good for Sam's departure before an accident occurs, which will reveal a lot more about what's going on up on the moon.

There's a lot to like about this film. If you dug 2001: A Space Oddssey (1968) which is really a first rate science fiction film, then you will dig this. Moon has the benefit of CGI, but its use is not to generate poorly-rendered Rastafarian aliens: it serves as a tasteful and complementary backdrop to the set pieces which really make you think of Kubrick. Kevin Spacey does his best HAL as the voice of the robot, which cashed in on 2001 without completely ripping it off, but I don't think his vocal performance could get any closer to the original monotone voiced by Douglas Rain.

The tension between laxity and the perfection needed to exist in a zero atmosphere environment where the slightest miscalculation or mistake can instantly kill you in the most painful way possible is really demonstrated here. There is one particular scene where Sam tries to pass off a minor mistake caused by psychological stress as a simple accident, only to have the robot grill him with questions. Every ancillary detail of the film (carving miniatures with a pen knife, botany, ping pong) is presented in a way which heightens the fact that we often expend an extraordinary amount of attention on what we like to do, and tend to treat the monotonous work of everyday which is critical to other people and our own survival as a cakewalk (perhaps to exercise control over that which we are masters of in order to defray the tension of the uncontrollable or that which challenges us the most...).

7/10: Speaking of diffusing some tension, a lighter side of the moon

Breaker! Breaker! (1977)

Paragon Films Inc., 86 min., Dir. Don Hulette

So I was flipping through upcoming films on IFC since I no longer have that channel, and this one came up. I figured, at 86 thrill packed minutes, at least i wouldn't be wasting my whole night.

A very young Chuck Norris plays J.D. Dawes, a "zen trucker" who stops off to take a break at a truck stop and let his little bro (Michael Augenstein) haul some frozen dinners. The only thing that really identifies him as a "zen trucker" is that he's doing some kind of meditation exercise with two dudes and he karate kicks a lot of hillbillies around. I guess you can't expect too much back story from a film that has "Hit in the Face" as a keyword on IMDB.

Breaker! Breaker! has the ominous "N/A" rating on Rottentomates.com, meaning there were either no reviews or this was a direct to DVD type thing. I can see why. There is virtually no story whatsoever. Norris' little brother gets kidnapped by a small town Sheriff's department and there are a bunch of fistfights along the way. Norris befriends and sleeps with the judge's daughter, which as you might imagine don't sit too well with him. There's some question in Norris' zen trucker mind about whether his brother is even in the town, until, get this, the judge's daughter serves a frozen dinner of the same brand that his little brother was hauling!!!!!

Things get ugly, and since the judge is too old and fat to fight Norris, he has a confrontation with one of the deputies that you can watch on some dude's bootlegged VCR recording on YouTube. When I was watching I kept yelling "break that bottle!" and sure enough, he does. The fight takes place in a horse corral and for some reason the director felt it necessary to keep cutting to shots of the horse during the fight. Is the horse a metaphor for Norris' spin kicks? It's like the director woke up, watched half of a Sergio Leone western, said "hey, I think I'll try that," and four hours later Breaker! Breaker! was printed and ready for distribution.

Ahh, but there's more. The film score is porno grade, at best. It sounds like a cassette tape from the $0.99 bin at a truck stop piped through a boombox, which might have been the point, but I doubt it. The martial arts: let's just say that Norris might have had a black belt at the time, but the choreography and his fellow "actors" make him look like Star Wars Kid. There a lot of "I can see space between your foot and the other guy" kicks and "that dude just hit the deck three seconds too soon" punches.

*SPOILER ALERT*During the final fight, which Norris wins with his forty-ninth spin kick, his GF gets on the CB Radio and calls for backup in the form of a fleet of trucks that is so large it makes the earth shake. The only problem, the producers could only afford three or so trucks. They basically destroy the whole town, which consists of unused set pieces from Bonanza. In terms of great trucker flicks, this definitely is not one of them. In fact, trucking had hardly anything to do with the movie really, apart from the sparse use of CB radios and trucking metaphors. However, if you haven't seen this film and you have Netflix, I have to recommend watching it because it is too funny to miss out on.

6/10: Time to take this rig home buddyboy...and by that I mean shutdown my computer