"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Suburban Commando

According to IMDb, SUBURBAN COMMANDO had a limited release on June 21, 1991, before a wider one in October. Therefore, it is my misfortune to have decided to categorize it as a Summer of ’91 release.

Nah, I’ll be okay, but you will not be surprised to hear that this second Hulk Hogan vehicle from New Line Cinema is even dumber and shittier than NO HOLDS BARRED, and not as entertainingly so since it’s a family comedy instead of a brain damaged underground fighting movie. But I made it through and I know what it is now and at least I was able to see the big screen debut of one of today’s most acclaimed actresses in television and film.

The premise is that you got a bounty hunter guy from a poorly explained, generic bootleg Star Wars rip-off sci-fi universe who lands on earth and lives with a bad movie’s idea of a normal suburban family. ALF with muscles and worse jokes. In the opening you have some cheap looking Star Destroyer knockoff model shots as the great hero (or maybe anti-hero? it’s not really clear) Shep Ramsey (Hulk Hogan, GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH) flies in to save the president (Nick Eldredge, “S.I.D. #1,” Hill Street Blues) from their dollar store Darth Vader, General Suitor (William Ball, one episode of The Streets of San Francisco) who’s just a regular unimpressive dude in a black outfit and cape, no mask.

I know it shouldn’t bother me, but this type of sci-fi world in a comedy where they go “Oh, you know, like a Star Wars type thing” and the only spin on it is “everything is lazier and shittier” – I hate it so much. It makes me feel kind of gross. At least make up some weird aliens or come up with a joke or something. Nobody wants to look at this shit. The one and only thing I like about this terrible section of the movie is that it’s a quasi-dramatic science fiction scene where all three important characters are balding middle aged men. You don’t see that everyday.

Well, I suppose I also mildly appreciate that all the guards have super long ponytails hanging out from their helmets. I guess we can count that as two good things.

Although Shep has cool jet boots and metal gloves that he uses to punch a bunch of guys, the General turns into a lizard and kills the president and all Shep can do is jump into a vent and fly away. But he doesn’t give that much of a shit about his utter failure and asks his boss (kind of like the hologram in CAPTAIN EO but just a TV screen) what the next mission is. Shep even suggests a couple things like “all right, how ‘bout a big bug hunt with creatures that bleed acid,” which you see, it is a reference to a certain sci-fi action movie from the director of another sci-fi movie starring a muscleman that will be coming out later in this summer. (It’s funny because it’s ALIENS, he’s talking about ALIENS. Do you get it?)

Shep’s boss wants him to take a vacation, so he gets mad and smashes a thing on his spaceship and it’s going to take time to recharge, so he crash lands in an abandoned sci-fi themed roller disco on Earth called the Landing Pad.

Now what will happen? This guy doesn’t know how Earth people act! And he’s really strong! He says things like, “Earthlings – I hate Earthlings,” so the joke is he’s racist against all humans, instead of only being “racist to a point” as the real Hogan described himself in the infamous recording where he made horribly demeaning comments and racial slurs about his daughter’s boyfriend. Shep figures out to hide his space armor and steal a guy’s clothes (and have the guy’s dog eat at a restaurant – long story) and goes to rent an apartment which is actually a converted part of a house because this is SUBURBAN COMMANDO and movies don’t know there are apartment buildings in the suburbs.

The home belongs to Charlie Wilcox (Christopher Lloyd right after BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III and Back to the Future… The Ride) who, like Flipper Purify in JUNGLE FEVER, is an architect angry about being passed over for a promotion. But he’s too wimpy to go through with his plan of confronting his credit-stealing, prick boss Adrian Beltz (Larry Miller, PRETTY WOMAN). Here’s a rare joke that made me laugh: Beltz asks Charlie how his wife is doing, but uses the wrong name. Charlie corrects him that it’s Jenny (Shelley Duvall, Frankenweenie). Beltz checks a file on his computer, which indeed says his wife is named Jenny, and says, “You’re right.”

Jenny doesn’t have enough to do in the movie, nor does her daughter Theresa (Laura Mooney, TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE). But Jenny is very accepting of and helpful to her new housemate from space who claims the reason he doesn’t know basic normal human shit is because he’s from France. And then Shep just wanders around participating in a string of dumb comical episodes like he runs into a mime doing the invisible wall thing, and he says “Must be a K-7 force field” and then “helps” him the mine by tossing him. I’ve never been able to determine why movies in the ‘80s and ‘90s were so angry at mimes, and I’m even less clear why a mime would be performing this cliche in a litter-strewn alley at night. But later it happens again and the mime says something about not going out at night anymore, and that’s one of a couple different lines I’m convinced they added in after someone on set complained that what they were doing made no god damn sense and then they decided if they just have a character point out that it sucks it doesn’t count as sucking.

One of a surprisingly few jokes having specifically to do with him being an alien is when he hears laser sounds from inside an arcade and goes in to help a kid beat a space video game which he somehow believes is them really being in a spaceship? I don’t know man, I don’t know what goes through this guy’s head. Anyway he plays the game so intensely the machine breaks and all the children celebrate that he “saved the galaxy.”


Other jokes are just about him being super-strong and confused, and the movie itself is kind of confused about it. When he sees some dudes driving recklessly he rolls their car over, drags them out of it and spins the car around on its top. Even though he has to be stopped from smashing their faces in, the score by David Michael Frank (in between OUT FOR JUSTICE and SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO) plays a triumphant space hero theme the whole time.

Meanwhile wimpy Charlie reclaims his manhood after finding Shep’s space man shit in the house. First he accidentally fires a laser gun, destroying his asshole neighbor’s funny car. (But also giving away Shep’s location to the evil General Suitor (I’m embarrassed I even remember the character’s name at this point), who sends bounty hunters after him.

Charlie puts on Shep’s space armor and happens to come across some gang rapists (this suburb must be just outside of a city from a DEATH WISH sequel), who attempt to murder him for being a cosplayer or whatever, but luckily the bullet bounces off him. The intended victim tells him, “If there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all,” and lights on his crotch start blinking. I hope somebody somewhere has done a study of the history of this trope of an overlooked man being empowered by rescuing a woman from gang rapists.

In all the boner-inducing excitement Charlie leaves behind some weapon, and he and Shep have to try to reclaim it, so obviously more hijinks are foisted upon us. The rapists try to rob a bank using his freeze gun. I like this part where a frozen lady is holding two obvious stuffed dogs. I guess it’s up to interpretation whether they’re alive or not within the reality of the movie.


The dudes turn the gun on Shep but luckily he has a bottle of antifreeze that he chugs and that protects him and he says “Antifreeze!,” because if people are named Shep Ramsey in space there’s no reason why they don’t also have antifreeze and call it antifreeze.

I’ve noticed that many of the movies in this summer have a line about it being the ‘90s – for example in JUNGLE FEVER Debi Mazar suggests it as a reason not to be racist. In this one it’s why some tough biker guys who get in Shep’s face aren’t saying they’re going to fight him like he assumes. “What, are you nuts? This is the ‘90s. We’re gonna sue you.”

I also like to note if there’s stuff that’s considered more offensive now than it was then, not to shame the past but just to note our evolving morals. In this one it’s the joke that the two male bounty hunters steal a car that says “Just Married” on the back, and then a “surfer dude” stereotype worker at a surfer dude stereotype themed fast food drive-in congratulates them and calls them a cute couple. Maybe he’s progressive, but I’m guessing he’s just meant to be an out of it stoner who doesn’t notice they’re two men. Either way, they seem offended – homophobia apparently extending to spacemen. Back then I hated gay jokes like this but it never would’ve occurred to me that we’d have legal same sex marriage now. I’m glad in this one case we’ve progressed beyond my imagination.

Also there’s a part where he throws a guy upward see he busts through several floors and then his head comes up through a toilet when a lady is sitting on it. Can you imagine?

Eventually there’s a showdown with General Suitor at the abandoned roller disco, and at least when he turns into his lizard form it’s a good creature suit. Thank you for that Steve Johnson, creator of Freddy’s death sequence in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER (last seen on HOWLING VI: THE FREAKS).

In the end, this is really Charlie’s story, because Shep helps him escape but he decides he has to go back to help, telling his wife “This is something I have got to do,” and we get the idea that she’s impressed by his great courage. And he does help and the kids say “Way to go, Dad! You’re the best!” and I think we’re supposed to get a little weepy about it.

One very early ‘90s aspect is that the neighborhood kids are into skateboarding, and Shep tries to do it but falls on his ass. Then at the end before he leaves the planet he tries it again and suddenly can do a bunch of impossible flips and stuff. As far as I could tell there is no reason for him to have learned this during the movie. Also he gives one of the kids his futuristic jet-powered skateboard, which brings up a new question of why he couldn’t do this shit at the beginning.

One moment in the movie that comes closer to a funny joke than most is when he finds a little girl crying about “my cat,” he sees a cat in a tree so he bends the tree over and the girl angrily says, “That’s not my cat!”

And then it leads to a dumber joke than that. But the significant thing about the scene is that the little girl is, I’m pretty sure, Elisabeth Moss (US, THE INVISIBLE MAN). She’s definitely in the movie, credited as “Little Girl,” and this sure looks like her to me.

Left: Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe winner Elisabeth Moss. Right: unidentified Zubaz aficionado.

I would like to offer one last illustration of how much this movie sucked for the time and not just because it’s old now. Some of the hip hop albums that came out in the summer of ’91 include De La Soul Is Dead, O.G. – Original Gangster by Ice-T, Mr. Hood by KMD, The One by Chubb Rock, Efil4zaggin by N.W.A, Funke, Funke Wisdom by Kool Moe Dee, All Souled Out by Peter Rock & CL Smooth, The Ruler’s Back by Slick Rick, We Can’t Be Stopped by Geto Boys, Breaking Atoms by Main Source, A Future Without a Past by Leaders of the New School, the self-titled debut of Cypress Hill, and I Need a Haircut by Biz Markie. The Low End Theory, A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, Death Certificate, Organized Konfusion and 2Pacalypse Now would all come out before the end of the year. So if you’re familiar with any of those albums I’d like you to keep them in mind as the state of the art at the exact moment the following opening credits rap ”Nice Place To Live (But I Wouldn’t Want to Visit)” by J-Rock featuring Hulk Hogan was presented to the world:

But hey! This is another one that had a video game! Starts as a space ship game and then super-deformed Hulk Hogan hops around a Super Mario Brothers version of Earth collecting coins and fruits and shooting at guys? Once again, this is a weird vision of suburbia: tall buildings, an amusement park, knife-wielding mohawk dudes, spikes and pits everywhere?

If SUBURBAN COMMANDO really had a limited release in the summer, I’m not sure how it did. When it officially opened in October it was rightfully smashed by the classic RICOCHET, among others, and ultimately made less than its modest budget.

Hogan, of course, continued to be one of the most iconic wrestlers of all time, but his movie career did not flourish. Unless you count his bit parts in ROCKY III or GREMLINS 2 he never made a single movie fit to even be on a shelf on the same side of the room as his ring nemesis Roddy Piper’s THEY LIVE. Shit, I’m not sure he even had a HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN. Other than the TV show Thunder in Paradise he pretty much did more bottom-of-the-barrel family comedy garbage: MR. NANNY (1993), SANTA WITH MUSCLES (1996), 3 NINJAS: HIGH NOON AT MEGA MOUNTAIN (1998). I think THE ULTIMATE WEAPON (1998) is his only non-TV straight action movie, so I’ll have to give that a chance some time.

Lloyd had THE ADDAMS FAMILY coming out shortly, so this didn’t crash his career. Duvall followed it by working with Steven Soderbergh (THE UNDERNEATH), Jane Campion (THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY) and Guy Maddin (TWILIGHT OF THE ICE NYMPHS), though she did more cheesy comedies after that. The third anthology children’s show she created, produced and hosted, Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories, started in ’92. Theresa Wilcox, who played the young daughter, has mostly worked as an animation voice. She’s only had one role since the ‘90s, but it was as “Therapy Cat Lady” in SOUL, so that’s not bad.

This was the debut of screenwriter Frank A. Cappello, who has gone on to do some pretty good movies. He directed AMERICAN YAKUZA, wrote and directed NO WAY BACK and HE WAS A QUIET MAN, and even co-wrote CONSTANTINE.

Burt Kennedy was a highly decorated WWII veteran who wrote for radio programs and used his army fencing training to get into movies, including the 1948 version of THE THREE MUSKETEERS. He got a writing contract with John Wayne’s production company, wrote 7 MEN FROM NOW and THE TALL T for Budd Boetticher, and stayed at it long enough to write WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART for Clint. He directed a ton of westerns, including RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF! and HANNIE CAULDER. And SUBURBAN COMMANDO was his last feature. He at least got to return in 2001 for a short called Comanche – the story of a horse that survived The Battle of Little Big Horn, with Kris Kristofferson, Wilford Brimley, Angie Dickinson and Gerald McRaney. Good save.

Cultural references: Jenny loves The Marsha Warfield Show (an NBC day time talk show with a ten month run that overlapped with the filming of this movie). Beltz is familiar with the differences between GODZILLA, RODAN and MOTHRA (as we learn from a decent joke about him being racist and not knowing what else to talk to his Japanese guests about). Opening credits rap references “clap on, The Clapper” and “Madonna, lambada.” Movie seems to be sponsored by RC Cola.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2021 at 7:05 am and is filed under Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Science Fiction and Space Shit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

29 Responses to “Suburban Commando”

  1. This movie is terrible, but what your review mostly reminds me of is what a tragedy it is that some De La Soul albums are out of print due to a contract issue, including […] Is Dead. Sucks.

  2. grimgrinningchris

    June 21st, 2021 at 8:00 am

    Is this the only time Lloyd didn’t play a complete nut job?

  3. Gotta be honest, the “We’re going to sue you” joke actually got a huge laugh out of me. Same with the cat joke. I guess I don’t mind cat abuse in movies, if it’s played for slapstick fun. (Also the obviously-done-by-a-human cat noises are exactly my kind of humor.)

    Despite Hulkamania having reached Germany at that time too, it went straight to video here, under the title THE KNIGHT FROM OUTER SPACE (“Der Ritter aus dem All”), with a “16” rating, that was even by early 90s standards way too harsh. But since the German kids’ addiction to wrestling was a highly controversial subject back then, I guess it got that rating just out of fear that otherwise some 12 year old would chokeslam each other through the living room tables.

    A friend of mine was totally obsessed with that movie back then. Really wouldn’t shut up about it and I think he rented it at least once a month.

  4. One of the bounty hunters looking for Shep is Mark Callaway, more famously known as The Undertaker. He just joined the WWF when he filmed his role in this. Apart from the short-lived Sci-Fi Network show starring the character he didn’t do any more acting beyond this I believe. He retired from in-ring work last year.

    91 wasn’t that great a year for Hogan, and the release of this movie was badly timed against a scandal that would rock wrestling for some years to come. A doctor in Pennsylvania was convicted of distributing steroids to an FBI agent posing as a bodybuilder, and it turned out he was also providing them to Vince McMahon.

    Hogan went on Arsenio Hall shortly after and lied about taking them, which caused a bit of an uproar because it was discovered during that trial that steroids were directly delivered to him. It did a good deal of damage to his public persona that the tape revealing his racism would finish the job on.

  5. Great, entertaining read, brings back lots of memories from my single viewing back then. Otherwise the only thing I recall was that a space glove crotch punch revealed the alien monster’s form (there was a troubling abundance of genital trauma humor in shitty early 90s kid movies).

    I was deeply, immediately, and appropriately shamed when I thought it would be funny to revisit the trailer with friends ten years ago. All other records should be destroyed and this review can be the only testament to the film’s existence.

  6. I have repressed this movie and NO HOLDS BARRED from my memory but for whatever reason I have good memories of MR. NANNY.

  7. grimgrinningchris

    June 21st, 2021 at 9:45 am

    Thunder In Paradise was as notable for multiple seasons of Chris Lemmon in a Speedo as for the boat or Hogan.

  8. The most memorable part of that show for me was the Jimmy Hart tunes and random WCW cameos.

  9. I wasn’t really a WWF kid, but I did see this and MR NANNY long before I hit double digits, the latter at a classy Art House Cinema! Revisiting them in my late teens was, um, disappointing.

    THE ULTIMATE WEAPON was passable for late 90s DTV\Made for TV action fare in the NuImage Style so, you know “passable” if you’re feeling generous with your definition of the word.

  10. I think The Undertaker once guest starred in an episode of that POLTERGEIST TV show in the 90s, playing a demon or something.

  11. The middling Hogan family comedies gave us the refined and subtle delights of TWIN SITTERS, making them works of great cultural significance for this and this alone.

    Without question, this is one of the funniest Vern reviews ever. I know you say you don’t have an easy time of reviewing comedies but am I sure ever happy Vern enjoys reviewing dumb shit.

    Also, ’91 superstars Christopher Lloyd, Shelley Duvall and Daniel Stern will always seem like the most famous actors in the world to me.

  12. Also, I know a lot of wrestlemaniacs know this but I’d just like to say that the excellent (and way better than Hogan) musician Jimmy Hart was in this amazing garage band The Gentrys, best known for “Keep on Dancin'”, but beloved to myself for , their almost note-for-note rewrite of the popular (and much better) oldie “Midnight Confessions” by The Grass Roots.

    The Gentrys - Why Should I Cry

    Taken from The GentrysCatalog Number: SUN-117Subscribe to Sun Record's Official YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/SUN_RECORD_YT© Copyright: 1970 Sun Entertainm...

    I used to work at the parking garage of this place that held a “comic con”, but Jimmy Hart cancelled shortly before the day of the show. I really wanted to talk to him about The Gentrys, a legit great bubblegum group with so many good songs. I wasn’t gonna mention the Grass Roots soundalike, though, because I did not want to be thrown through no tables.

  13. Look, if you’re a student at the local community clown college and it’s summer and it’s hot and you can’t afford air conditioning and you’re sharing an apartment with like two other mimes, a rodeo clown, and a Pagliacci, you practice your mimery in alleys at night, okay?

    Anyway, Vern, I was so happy to see this review because I thought this was an autumn release! I definitely watched and enjoyed this as a kid. I’m certain it aired on the same channel from which I taped stuff like RoboCop 2 and Masters of the Universe, so it fit right into my wheelhouse at the time. I haven’t seen it in over 25 years and don’t remember a damn thing about it, but I’ve been meaning to revisit it. I’m happy to find out it’s from the same director as Dirty Dingus McGee.

    Three pieces of trivia, though, that I do remember:

    1. This was supposed to be a movie called URBAN COMMANDO with Arnold and Danny DeVito but they never made it. When they cut the budget and hired more cost-effective actors, I guess they had to also move to the suburbs.
    2. One of the props was clearly stolen from the set of Ghostbusters II or something.
    3. A crew member died on the set of this movie. That’s right, a human being gave their life for Suburban Commando. Any accidental movie production death deeply upsets me, because no movie is worth a person’s life, but Suburban Commando is especially not worth it.

    I also remember a lot of movies and TV shows from the ’90s featuring characters saying “this is the ’90s!” I guess the ’90s were supposed to be a new enlightened era compared to the grimy ’80s? or the ’80s were the Renaissance and the ’90s were the Enlightenment? How’d that turn out?

  14. 1. One of my favorite 30 ROCK jokes is when Carrie Fisher tells Liz Lemon to loosen up because “this is the 90s.” In 2007. (This was also the episode that gave us the most useful piece of wisdom ever doled out on network television: “Never follow a hippie to a second location.”)

    2. I have still not gotten around to seeing DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE but I am a big fan of its theme song. It’s a lot better than SUBURBAN COMMANDO’s, that’s for sure.

    Dirty Dingus Magee (From "Dirty Dingus Magee")

    Provided to YouTube by Universal Music GroupDirty Dingus Magee (From "Dirty Dingus Magee") · The Mike Curb CongregationBurning Bridges And Other Great Motion...

  15. Wow, that looks terrible. I have never seen it and don’t even have a memory of it being a thing. But more evidence of how shitty it is is the title. From what you described, he’s not a “Commando.” A tough space guy is not a “Commando,” Arnold Schwarzenegger as an ex-green beret trying to rescue his daughter is a “Commando.” They obviously didn’t want to get into the space shit in the marketing and so they called him a “Commando” to make people think it was something else.

  16. Ha! I do remember seeing it in the fall. Haven’t seen it in over 20 years so I trust it does not hold up. 2 things:

    1) the video game is After Burner, though it’s not named. So not even a space game.

    2) Boomerang the next summer would be big on how dating has changed in the ‘90s.

  17. Something important to know about this film is that it was promoted on the inside of the original FREDDY’S DEAD 3-D glasses, along with Barq’s root beer (you know, the one with bite).

  18. Andrew – I heard very recently that they straightened out whatever the issue was keeping their catalog off of streaming, so maybe they’ll come back into print too.

  19. DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE is really no better than it ought to be, but that theme tune is very fine. I’m ashamed to say I’d forgotten it. Now I’m gonna be singing it all day!

    Few things give more variable mileage than the comedy western but if you’re in the market for such things, Kennedy’s two SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL… movies starring James Garner and made around the same time as MAGEE are a cut above it.

    Kennedy gave a lot of work to Jack Elam, which is always a plus for me, so I’m pleased to note that he’s in the cast of SUBURBAN COMMANDO, although that probably isn’t enough to get me to watch it.

  20. grimgrinningchris

    June 22nd, 2021 at 8:13 am

    I’m serious though. Can anyone point me to a Christopher Lloyd lead (or leadish or at least prominently featured) role that he wasn’t a total nutbar… and being a wet blanket wimp in SC doesn’t count…

    From Taxi to being a Klingon to Doc Brown to Professor Plum to Judge Doom to a psych patient in The Dream Team to Fester Addams to even shit like the junkie surgeon in Sin City or the crazy scientist/pet store guy in Pirahna 3-D.

  21. He played a relative straight man in the CD-Rom game TOONSTRUCK, where he was an animator who got COOL WORLDed.

  22. How about when he played that painter on Cheers?

  23. I guess Nobody doesn’t count either.

  24. DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE (the movie, not the song) doesn’t live up to its title.

  25. This is on YouTube if anyone wants to Casper it. Or even to um… do we have a term for watching an old movie we’ve never seen before? Wendying it? (That’s me working on the probably unfair assumed that none of us have seen Saban’s CASPER MEETS WENDY introducing Hilary Duff)

  26. grimgrinningchris- I got it! THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU’RE DEAD! As I recall, Lloyd was pretty restrained in that one. For a projectionist at a porno theater at least. Although, as a former projectionist myself, I may be cutting him some slack. Man, I need to see that one again. Great performances across the board, especially Treat Williams and William Forsythe.

  27. This is not a great movie, but it’s my favourite Hulk Hogan movie and it has a lot of sentimental value. It’s good in parts, but uneven, like most things. This is arguably where Hogan’s acting career peaked. He wasn’t a great actor outside of wrestling (though he was a great actor inside of wrestling) and he couldn’t really do comedy, but he had enough charisma to be a minor movie star and he had a pleasant voice.

    Hulk Hogan is like the Stan Lee of wrestling. By all accounts of people who’ve dealt with him he’s not that nice a person, he’s lied about a lot of things, he’s pushed other people out of the spotlight on his way to the top and doesn’t deserve to be the face of his industry as much as he is, but somehow you keep wanting to like him anyway.

    The spaceship effects are pretty good considering the budget and the fact that it’s a comedy. It’s no SPACEBALLS but it’s another example of how STAR WARS raised the bar on spaceship effects to where they had to be at least this good to be OK.

    General Suitor’s costume isn’t as fancy as Darth Vader’s but I love William Ball’s acting in this movie. It’s campy and over the top but in a skilled, professional way, and he too has a cool voice. Unfortunately he hasn’t done much else in the way of recorded media; almost all of his work was in live theatre.

    Agreed: Adrian Beltz has some of the funnier lines. My favourite is when he has to explain the blueprints to the Japanese clients without knowing anything about it, so he tries to stall for time by saying that the building will feature floors, and “it goes without saying that one man’s floor is another man’s ceiling, so to keep them separate, we’re recommending: walls.”

    Shelly Duvall is loveable in this movie.

    I’ve never understood the hatred of mimes either. That’s one thing I don’t accept from this movie, is the running gag of the mime getting hurt. It’s slightly less bad because Shep isn’t trying to hurt the mime; he thinks he’s helping him. But the movie still wants us to think it’s funny that a mime got hurt. I also don’t accept the cat getting launched. It’s a testament to how nostalgic I am for this movie I’ll still watch it in spite of that. Also, the music in this movie (aside from “Nice Place to Live”) is pretty bad. David Michael Frank would do a lot better in his Seagal movies.

    Is Shep’s “antifreeze” literally antifreeze or is it some type of hot sauce? My assumption was hot sauce but it occurs to me that there’s no proof of this.

    People would say “This is the ’80s!” in 1980s things too. I miss that. And then in 1989 people would start referring to new things as being “the __________ of the ’90s” before the 1990s had started.

    ”Nice Place to Live (But I Wouldn’t Want to Visit)” by J-Rock is a good song! I find it oddly comforting and want to listen to it repeatedly.

    SHADOW WARRIORS: ASSAULT ON DEVIL’S ISLAND (1997) is another “straight” Hulk Hogan movie, not one of his children’s comedies like MR. NANNY, SECRET AGENT CLUB, or SANTA WITH MUSCLES. Those are movies that are best appreciated as kitsch from a simpler, more innocent time.

    At the end of the movie Charlie blows away the hated traffic light with Shep’s laser; wouldn’t this be traceable by Shep’s enemies? Wasn’t the whole reason Shep had to leave right away because they couldn’t risk any of his technology being traced to Earth? Maybe that scene was originally scripted to occur before Shep left and they moved it to the end without realising the plot hole.

    Borg9: This is the first place I saw Jack Elam in anything and I loved him as the Colonel. “Acceptable losses! Your car door is one! Your freedom is not!”

    onthewall2983: IIRC the other bounty hunter is an uncredited Ed Leslie, better known by his ring name Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake.

  28. In BRING ME THE HEAD OF MAVIS DAVIS from 1997 Rik Mayall’s unscrupulous Record Company owner character tells one of his acts that they “don’t want to be the A-Ha of the 90s”. I didn’t understand what that was supposed to me when I saw it some 20 years ago (being a film made and set in the UK where A-ha are known for more than just 1-2 songs), and it seems even odder with them having kept going with a relatively high profile since then.

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