motown junk

heya


indeed yes, another film post from. and you can probably expect more, look you see. whereas normally i don't get quite so much time as i may have liked to have a gander at movies, in the here and now all this "lockdown" to escape the new plague means now i kind of do.

unfortunately i have not always used such time as wisely as i might have. rather than re-watch some classics, or have a look at films which have come highly rated but thus far i have not watched (for example, inception is sat here next to me on a blu ray disc, unplayed. never seen it yet), recently i opted to watch collision course.

sadly, i am not talking about the ice age sequel (i think it was the fourth or fifth one) that has that title. nor am i speaking of any film which also might have that name. with regret it is that i am speaking about that one. the collision course made in the late 80s, dumped on audiences in the early 90s, total load of rubbish.

thanks wikipedia

how, or why, is it that it fell upon me to watch this film? well, my brother recommended it. as he considers the greatest film of all time to be convoy, closely followed by cannoball run ii, his taste is beyond question and his advice on films should always be trusted. well, up to the point where i watched collision course, at least.

plot? there really was not much of one i could work out, in truth. i think it was something about some super plans for some super japanese car engine being stolen by someone naughty, who was off to sell it to some american car maker in detroit. the japanese send a copper (pat morita out of proper karate kid) to detroit to fetch the plans, and there he teams up with a supposed to be affable, nice but dim copper but alas they didn't cast that part to a proper actor (played by jay leno, out of nothing particularly good except for when he plays jay leno).

yes, then. it does try and do that whole "fish out of water" and "mismatched cop partners who become buddies" thing. which worked well in the 2 - 3 years prior to collision course being made in films like red heat and of course lethal weapon. but them two films had things this film does not, such as actors, a script, and so on.

the only remotely enjoyable moment in this film takes a test of patience to get it. at around the 55 minute mark the inevitable, predictable and contrived "big bar brawl" scene happens. in it, though, you get to watch jay leno get repeatedly punched and kicked in the stomach and (particularly enjoyably) in the face. a close second to enjoyment comes at the end, when jay leno gets shot in the leg. it appears to hurt him a bit, and he falls over.

for some reason they went to the extent of getting a (reasonably) good actor, chris sarandon, to play the "big bad". yet this they make a mess of, as for some reason they have made him dress up like edward james olmos as castillo out of miami vice, and given him strict instructions not to act. equally wasted (although not resplendent in miami vice wardrobes) are tom noonan out of manhunter and robocop 2, and ernie hudson out of ghostbusters and all them other films what he has done.

with no nudies, no jokes, no decent action scenes and no real sense of story or idea, it is difficult to view collision course as anything other than a very expensive way of proving that jay leno cannot act, and that pat morita has many talents but being the leading man expected to carry a film is not one of them.

over the years this film has been released with different titles. most of them, like detroit vice and in particular kamikaze detroit (i really like that one), are better that collision course. but, if for some reason you have not worked this out yet, just avoid this film no matter what title it has, and regardless of what my brother says.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!