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unclepucka
Reviews
Bio-Dome (1996)
Bio-Hazardous Waste
On viewing it last night, this film immediately usurped the position of my long-standing most despised film of all time, the execrable CALIGULA. BIO-DOME is, beyond any shred of doubt, THE most excruciating comedy I have ever had the misfortune to suffer (yep... it's worse than TOMCATS!). In fact, anything Malcolm McDowell did with a newlywed couple and a fistful of mashed potatoes in CALIGULA was a thousand times funnier than the collective 'jokes' of BIO-DOME.
Movies like this always raise frightening questions. Why is Pauly Shore still paid to appear in movies when the world, by now, should have made him feel unsafe in going outdoors lest a crippling injury befall him? Why is Stephen Baldwin still beating his career to death with inane projects like THE FLINTSTONES IN VIVA ROCK VEGAS after a terrific stint in THE USUAL SUSPECTS? How can a movie be so bad that even a four-second appearance by Tenacious D isn't worth sitting through it?
In closing, I share the words of a good friend who watched the film with me. Partway through the laughless mire, he turned to me with genuine concern and asked, "Mate, are you all right? I've never seen you look like that before".
Krocodylus (2000)
And you thought 'Lake Placid' was a croc(k)...
I had the good sense to imbibe an unhealthy dosage of Wild Turkey before indulging in this travesty at the home of a close Irish friend. We got exactly what we expected ... and deserved. This shoestring amalgam of recent 'big critter' flicks LAKE PLACID and ANACONDA held little value even for an avid pair of cinematic punishment gluttons like ourselves. The prospect of Kate Fischer cavorting semi-naked was enticing at first, but we were soon mired in a cesspool of atrocious dialogue and far-from-special effects that rapidly drained the potential fun away. The plot, in itself, is so astoundingly stupid as to be riveting, in a morbid way: two idiotic thrillseekers who surf in shark-infested waters and the filmmakers committing their exploits to celluloid disturb a gigantic crocodile in the area. Bloody mayhem ensues. Fischer, as the daredevil cameraperson, acts largely with her breasts, which is a good thing because they have much more personality than the screenwriter has allowed her character. The guy playing the grizzled captain with a grudge against the crocodile is suitably menacing and manic at appropriate times ... which isn't to say he should ever work in the industry again. All other performances are entirely devoid of merit.
A Computer Science undergraduate could have knocked up the shoddy CG work during a rainy weekend, given the motivation to contribute his time and effort to a film that four people in the world would ever see; the mechanical effects are OK, courtesy of John Carl Beuchler, who directed and designed the gory stuff for FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII (another slice of movie magic). To be fair, some of the death and dismemberment on display here is wonderfully colourful and over-the-top, and those with particular sensibilities will lap up the laughably gratuitous nudity and sex. Ultimately, those with a genuine passion for truly rotten film will not find this a COMPLETE waste of time ... just don't expect any semblance of originality or quality.