It’s official–Hollywood is running out of ideas. We are living in the age of the remake, sequel and reboot, and the decade that seems to be plundered the most is the 1980s. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing–Back to The Future, Terminator, Diehard–the list of ’80s classics is a long and proud one. But if you look between the greats, the ’80s is a veritable playground/graveyard of half-forgotten, fully-insane movies just waiting to clutch you into their neon-tinted, cocaine-flavored claws. In fact, for every modern movie masterpiece, there’s a malformed ’80s equivalent, hidden in the attic of our pasts, banging on the ceiling for the sweet, sweet fish-heads of our attention. For instance…
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And really, what crank didn’t like this?
If you liked
The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
An ambitious, polished and heartfelt re-telling of the archetypical epic-fantasy classic. Director Peter Jackson teams up with some serious acting muscle and some pioneering effects to bring a world of orcs, elves and goblins out of the clutches of lonely fat men and into the mainstream consciousness.
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It’s like LotR minus all that hard-to-follow “epic” stuff
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Hawk: The Slayer (1980)
Filmed with somebody’s dad’s camcorder, Hawk: The Slayer tries to bring us the staples of fantasy adventure without letting anything as petty as special fx, a budget or acting get in the way.
Our hero Hawk (the slayer) has a sword, and that’s about as much as he has going for him, so in order to overthrow his evil brother he’ll have to enlist the aid of a giant who’s not really that tall, a dwarf who’s not really that short, and an elf who is so good with a bow and arrow that every time he takes a shot he breaks the film.
Sometimes So Bad it’s Good, but often So Bad it’s Confusing, Hawk: The Slayer ends on a high note when the token magical character saves the day with–I kid you not–a slew of fluorescent powerballs.
Hokey dialogue, bargain basement effects and a total misunderstanding of how a film should be made make this movie a landmark in fantasy bizarre.
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If we could control our dreams, you’d better believe we’d be hanging out with Batman
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Inception (2010)
Christopher Nolan takes us into a a literal dreamworld as a group of professional dream-invaders attempt to infiltrate a target’s deepest subconscious in order to influence his real-world decisions. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the lead as a man whose nightmares are his greatest enemy as he toes the line between dreams and reality. An award winning and instantly iconic piece of movie-making.
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So it’s sort of like the Indiana Jones of dreams
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Dreamscape (1984)
A young Dennis Quaid smirks his way through this tribute to all things 1980 as a team of psychics try to stop the President’s nightmares. No, seriously. The President is a nervous wreck after recurring dreams about a nuclear apocalypse–so much so that he’s even ludicrously suggesting brokering disarmament talks with the Russians. Obviously, this madness can’t be allowed, so a twitchy David Patrick Kelly is sent into The President’s dreams to assassinate him in the most ’80s manner possible.
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“Iiii wassss once a maaaaaaannn!”
Set against a post-apocalyptic backdrop and a synth soundtrack, Quaid and Kelly duke it out in a fight that involves zombies, hybrid snake-men and neon nunchucks. The very fact that Molly Ringwald doesn’t burst onto the scene singing “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” is the most surprising thing about this movie.
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A much more exciting experience than The Coward.
If you liked
The Fighter (2010)
A slew of awards and nominations were justly awarded to this powerful biopic of a struggling boxer being trained by his crack-addicted brother. Values are tested and loyalties reexamined as “Irish” Mickey Ward defies the odds to become a world champion.
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How awful can a man wrestling a sauroid be?
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Arena (1989)
Although The Fighter was set in the ’80s it really missed out on some of the essential tone and values of the era. Where, for example, was the fist-fight with the giant mutant praying mantis? Where was the rotating cybernetic turtle beast?
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“Come here and give grandma a kiss!”
Arena addressed all of these needs and more in a movie about space-fights with space-aliens on a space-station. Can the ridiculously uncharismatic human make it in a sport dominated by fish-men and half-robot bull monsters? With the help of a four-armed trainer and a big-haired woman, just possibly. Arena is like Babylon 5 meets Bloodsport, and it is exactly as awesome and terrible as it sounds.
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And if you didn’t like The Avengers, don’t talk to us anymore
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The Avengers (2012)
A culmination of years of comic book movie development finally sees the big screen appearance of one of Marvel Comics’ most beloved institutions. With excellent casting, a massive budget and super-nerd Joss Whedon at the helm, The Avengers gave more bang per buck than any other superhero movie to date.
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Warning: Poster may be way better than movie
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Eliminators (1986)
The biggest achievement of The Avengers was bringing together iconic heroes and mythos into one single film successfully, and in this respect Interceptors is its equal–after all, how many other movies have the vision to include a cyborg, a ninja, and an Indiana Jones rip-off on the same team? If you felt a tingle in your chest when you read that last sentence, it was just your inner child trying to punch his way out.
Interceptors started with a very clear idea of what people wanted from a movie–even if those people were mostly eight-years-old–and set about cramming it into the loosest application of the word ‘plot’ in history.
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Scientist beats ninja, if scientist has a gun
But with a smart-aleck river rat, a mysterious ninja and a cyborg who plugs into a battle-car accessory in town, plot better move the hell out of the way before it gets run down by wicked-cool.
CONCLUSION!
When we look back at movies such as those listed above its easy to see why Hollywood is so desperate for new ideas–after all, the ’80s have apparently already squeezed the creative process to the point of insanity and beyond. Once you’ve seen a man kick a fish-hybrid through a window, everything else seems somehow lacklustre. Should Hollywood ever plunder the tombs of the less well-remembered ’80s movies in its quest for the next remake, we can expect cinema to take a turn for the mind-boggling. And, just possibly, usher in a new definition of awesome.
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Drokk you if you didn’t go see it
Steve Stevenson has a bachelor’s degree in watching terrible movies while drunk. Why not follow him on twitter? He’s so alone.
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We don’t need your judgment, Star, we need you to be in awe of our toe-dexterity
Steve gave you some much more enjoyable recommendations with 2000 AD Characters Who Deserve a Movie (Besides Dredd) and gave you some Harsh Life Lessons learned from Classic Video Games.
Image may be NSFW.
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