Axcellerator - Review Thread
Apr 12, 2020 15:02:22 GMT -5
via mobile
Frizzo the Clown, PhantomKnight, and 3 more like this
Post by 1godzillafan on Apr 12, 2020 15:02:22 GMT -5
Part of the "Movies Dracula Wouldn't Use to Wipe His Ass" series.
Those who visited Rifftrax's website this weekend were greeted with a special message offering members a special free viewing of a new film called Axcellerator through their website. Is it riffed? Nah, but it's directed by David Giancola, director of the Mystery Science Theater classic Time Chasers, as well as Rifftrax targets Pressure Point and Icebreaker. A special introduction by Giancola relates that the point of the offer is to offer up some fun for the self isolated during the Coronavirus outbreak.
So, he offers a movie about teleporting anywhere as a means of entertainment for a bunch of people who are locked up at home and can't leave. Why, this sounds like a great idea!
I don't know if this opens up for the film to be riffed at a future date, though Giancola and Rifftrax seem to be on great terms so I wouldn't be surprised. The film, as cheap as it is, is a bit too self-aware for my riffing tastes, so I'd side with it being left alone.
But as for the movie itself, imagine Time Chasers made today, with the exact same budget NOT adjusted for inflation. Now imagine it way more cheeky. If there's one thing that I admire about Giancola, it's that he doesn't let his funds interfere with his "vision." If he wants to make a quippy, Marvel/Joss Whedon like sci-fi adventure, he'll move hell and high water to do it. It'll look like shit, but damn it, he made something. That alone gives this movie way more passion than any movie nominated for an Academy Award last year.
The film starts with some dude who seems to be inspired by Paul Rudd in Ant-Man, even down to casting someone who resembles and talks like Paul Rudd. This guy tries to steal a car so he can get home to New York, but while he's hot wiring it some short dude with a gun says "I'm stealing this car!" and demands Paul Rudd-lite drive him out. They are then chased by a bunch of guys in cars with guns.
It's here that you really note that you are in no way going to get some A-plus production values from this movie, because this first car chase looks like ass. Paul Rudd-lite's steering motions alone make this scene a laugh riot, because he's doing that thing that 3-year-olds do where they mimic driving a car by jerking a steering wheel left and right which would honestly cause them to swerve violently on the road. It's spliced with the car chase footage which more often than not depicts him driving perfectly straight.
Anyway, they eventually are pinned down by the guys chasing them, and the guy who jacked Paul Rudd-lite shows him a little gizmo and tells him to think of his apartment and think of how much he'd rather be there right now. Just seconds before their car explodes, Paul Rudd-lite and the device teleport to his apartment in New York.
Not long after that, Paul Rudd-lite's landlord starts pounding at the door and Paul Rudd-lite desperately wants to avoid him. He grabs the teleportation device and teleports again. We cut to Arizona, where a retail worker named Kate (I'm bad with names, but I remember her's because she had a name tag) is being lectured by he boss because she was late because she took her dog to the vet. He then amuses himself by mocking her being single and saying she wouldn't need a job if she had a boyfriend to pay for everything (....what?) and tells her not to worry, because the perfect man will fall out of the sky and sweep her out of there. Paul Rudd-lite then teleports into her lap, and before she can be like "wtf" he teleports out again, taking her with him and leaving her boss with a look of "bwuh?"
I laughed for a solid five minutes, and I really shouldn't have. As a joke it's no good, the setup to this is forced and inane, but it kind of works because of that. The predictable punchline is so sudden and stupid that I couldn't help but love it.
While all of this is happening, a group of bad guys are trying to get the thingy majig back, played by Dynasty's John James and the-woman-who-is-so-freaky-she-even-scares-Tim-Burton Sean Young. They both want the gizmo, called the Axcellerator, back so they can do evil teleportation stuff with it. John James wants to call in some dude to look for it, but Sean Young is like "No! The guy you're talking about is even crazier than I am, and I did a scrotum tuck for Ace Ventura!" John James calls him in anyway, and he travels into the desert to meet Sam Jones AKA Flash Gordon!
If you weren't impressed by the special effects in the car chase, you'll love them here, as no attempt at a location shoot is deemed required and John James and Sam Jones are just recorded against a green screen with what may be a post card of a desert projected behind them. It looks amazing.
Meanwhile, Paul Rudd-lite, successfully avoiding his landlord, teleports back to his New York apartment with Kate and she is rightfully freaked out by this. He does his best to explain the Axcellerator to her, this glowing blue thingy that looks like the most complex vibrator/dildo ever, and they then try to use it to take her back to Arizona. Doesn't work. Next he says maybe his friend upstairs can fix it. Guy upstairs doesn't know what it is (great, I'm glad we detoured). Soon he gets text messages from someone unknown telling him to leave because bad guys are in the building looking for him, so they run out and get into another car chase that's just as "good" as the last one. They eventually escape.
Meanwhile, Flash Gordon is going from place to place looking for these people. He starts in Arizona, which is an odd place for him to start looking if I'm being honest. If they can track the Axcellerator they should realize they're more likely to be in New York, right? He kills Kate's boss because why wouldn't he, then soon after he's in New York to kill the guy Paul Rudd-lite asked about the Axcellerator (he has a great line in "Can you do me a favor? Can you act like you've been shot in the head?"). Considering how fucking fast this guy travels across the country, I'm surprised he doesn't have a teleportation machine of his own.
Soon after, Paul Rudd-lite and Kate's car runs out of gas. Why didn't they buy gas with the twenty bucks they established Kate had earlier in the movie? Who knows. They then look for another car to steal when Paul Rudd-lite gets a text message from the mystery helping person again, telling them they're being tracked through their cell phones and they need to get lost, then they start arguing about what to do next.
I want to make something clear here that this one scene is my favorite shot of the movie. Our heroes are bickering in the frame, and eventually Flash Gordon starts doing a hurried waddle toward them with a daffy grin right behind them. This is the exact same gleeful sprint I imagine Doomsday will do when Braveheart and Gladiator finally play in theaters. It has to be a good ten seconds of him running toward them, giggling, before they notice this guy heading toward them before they go "Oh shit!" and run for their lives. The framing and blocking of this scene is gold and it brought so much joy to my life in these dark times.
Anyway, a footchase ensues until the Acxellerator glows again and Paul Rudd-lite and Kate teleport to Utah, leaving the assassins behind. They steal a car and drive to the Grand Canyon, where they camp out, share some laughs, and have bonding time. Eventually they make their way to a retail store where they try to pull a fast scam for quick money and Paul Rudd-lite sees on the TV that his friend upstairs has been murdered and the blame has been pinned on them. Ignoring the whole fugitive thing, Paul Rudd-lite is very sad now, because upstairs guy was like a father to him or whatever, so he wants to go back to New York because reasons. He and Kate teleport back to the upstairs apartment, where Flash Gordon is waiting for them.
THEY DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!
Paul Rudd-lite tackles Flash Gordon and they teleport away, leaving Kate behind to be captured by the bad guys. Flash Gordon is left behind in a random spot as Paul Rudd-lite teleports away again, this time appearing in a lab with the scientist dude that gave him the Axcellerator, who is surprisingly not dead from that explosion. He explains that the Axcellerator transported him to his childhood home while it teleported itself with Paul Rudd-lite, explaining that the Axcellerator takes the user where they want to go deep down in their hearts, not where they ask to go. This explains why he teleported into Kate's lap in Arizona, because who doesn't want to be in a hot brunette's lap? This also explains why it wouldn't teleport Kate back home, because her heart's desire is to be with a strange car thief who suddenly appeared and sat on her.
There is also the big reveal of who has been texting him the entire movie, and it's Sean Young. This is especially jarring because it's easy to forget that Sean Young is in this movie. She tells him that Kate has been captured and taken hostage for the Axcellerator in Chile. Why Chile? Who knows. How did they get there so fast WITHOUT the teleportation device? Efficiency! Paul Rudd-lite, scientist guy, and Sean Young come up with a plan to retrieve Kate safely and keep the Axcellerator out of John James hands.
Paul Rudd-lite and John James meet at the top of a mountain, because I guess the Axcellerator won't work there for vagueness's sake. Paul Rudd-lite won't hand it over until John James releases Kate, to which John James obliges by putting her into a lift with C4 (good one, dude!). Paul Rudd-lite hands John James a fake Axcellerator, who then orders Paul Rudd-lite's execution. Then scientist guy teleports in to the middle of the room with the REAL Axcellerator, teleports out with John James, and just leaves him behind in the Sahara desert.
Paul Rudd-lite races to Kate's rescue on a snowboard and springs her out of the lift at the last moment, resulting with a slow mo jump from a cheesy digital explosion. Flash Gordon the appears with a mega snow plow and tries to run them both over, but he gloats through a window at them, while Kate pulls a knife out of her shoe, throws it, and STABS HIM IN THE HEART! This woman is a keeper!
The movie concludes three months later, as Paul Rudd-lite, Kate, and Kate's dog are now the assistants of the scientist guy. They've upgraded the Axcellerator into body suits and they take them out for a test run. Kate says "If you want me, come and find me!" and teleports away, and Paul Rudd-lite teleports after her.
Does anybody remember the movie Jumper? Of course you don't. But if you did you would remember that it tried to be a fun romp but it really isn't that fun. It seems that the type of silly sense of adventure Jumper probably should have had was misplaced and reformed itself into this micro-budgeted clownshow that is way more watchable than it should be. There is a lot wrong with this movie, but I got a kick out of it. It feels like the people who made it knew their budget limitations, and instead of scaling down the movie in an effort at quality they said "Fuck it, lets have some fun." The lead actors are fun, John James is a pretty solid bad guy, and Sam Jones is pretty hilarious in this movie. Not a lot of people are going to react to its spirit because of how poorly made and logicless it is, but I found it infectious.
COMINGSOON'S TOP CRITICS WON'T STOP RAVING ABOUT AXCELLERATOR:
"This is filmmaking at its finest. Never fear, Neverending! A video essay will be up soon!" - PG Cooper
"This incredibly nuanced film is one of the best works in years." - SnoBorderZero
"Pleasantly surprised! I'm going to give it my highest grade of a C-." - Doomsday
"I wholeheartedly endorse this event or product." - Fanible
"It's fine. Main girl needed to take her top off." - Neverending
"Best movie of the year, but considering how few movies are left post-covid, that's pretty sad." - Wyldstaar
"I couldn't stop masturbating. Best movie about a teleporting sex toy I've ever seen! Two testicles up!" - Frizzo the Clown
"Uh..." - PhantomKnight
"I wasn't paying attention." - IanTheCool
"Racist." - Deexan
"..." - Jibbs
"Penis." - thebtskink
Dracula declined to comment, but this was his reaction when I broke into his house to ask him:
Those who visited Rifftrax's website this weekend were greeted with a special message offering members a special free viewing of a new film called Axcellerator through their website. Is it riffed? Nah, but it's directed by David Giancola, director of the Mystery Science Theater classic Time Chasers, as well as Rifftrax targets Pressure Point and Icebreaker. A special introduction by Giancola relates that the point of the offer is to offer up some fun for the self isolated during the Coronavirus outbreak.
So, he offers a movie about teleporting anywhere as a means of entertainment for a bunch of people who are locked up at home and can't leave. Why, this sounds like a great idea!
I don't know if this opens up for the film to be riffed at a future date, though Giancola and Rifftrax seem to be on great terms so I wouldn't be surprised. The film, as cheap as it is, is a bit too self-aware for my riffing tastes, so I'd side with it being left alone.
But as for the movie itself, imagine Time Chasers made today, with the exact same budget NOT adjusted for inflation. Now imagine it way more cheeky. If there's one thing that I admire about Giancola, it's that he doesn't let his funds interfere with his "vision." If he wants to make a quippy, Marvel/Joss Whedon like sci-fi adventure, he'll move hell and high water to do it. It'll look like shit, but damn it, he made something. That alone gives this movie way more passion than any movie nominated for an Academy Award last year.
The film starts with some dude who seems to be inspired by Paul Rudd in Ant-Man, even down to casting someone who resembles and talks like Paul Rudd. This guy tries to steal a car so he can get home to New York, but while he's hot wiring it some short dude with a gun says "I'm stealing this car!" and demands Paul Rudd-lite drive him out. They are then chased by a bunch of guys in cars with guns.
It's here that you really note that you are in no way going to get some A-plus production values from this movie, because this first car chase looks like ass. Paul Rudd-lite's steering motions alone make this scene a laugh riot, because he's doing that thing that 3-year-olds do where they mimic driving a car by jerking a steering wheel left and right which would honestly cause them to swerve violently on the road. It's spliced with the car chase footage which more often than not depicts him driving perfectly straight.
Anyway, they eventually are pinned down by the guys chasing them, and the guy who jacked Paul Rudd-lite shows him a little gizmo and tells him to think of his apartment and think of how much he'd rather be there right now. Just seconds before their car explodes, Paul Rudd-lite and the device teleport to his apartment in New York.
Not long after that, Paul Rudd-lite's landlord starts pounding at the door and Paul Rudd-lite desperately wants to avoid him. He grabs the teleportation device and teleports again. We cut to Arizona, where a retail worker named Kate (I'm bad with names, but I remember her's because she had a name tag) is being lectured by he boss because she was late because she took her dog to the vet. He then amuses himself by mocking her being single and saying she wouldn't need a job if she had a boyfriend to pay for everything (....what?) and tells her not to worry, because the perfect man will fall out of the sky and sweep her out of there. Paul Rudd-lite then teleports into her lap, and before she can be like "wtf" he teleports out again, taking her with him and leaving her boss with a look of "bwuh?"
I laughed for a solid five minutes, and I really shouldn't have. As a joke it's no good, the setup to this is forced and inane, but it kind of works because of that. The predictable punchline is so sudden and stupid that I couldn't help but love it.
While all of this is happening, a group of bad guys are trying to get the thingy majig back, played by Dynasty's John James and the-woman-who-is-so-freaky-she-even-scares-Tim-Burton Sean Young. They both want the gizmo, called the Axcellerator, back so they can do evil teleportation stuff with it. John James wants to call in some dude to look for it, but Sean Young is like "No! The guy you're talking about is even crazier than I am, and I did a scrotum tuck for Ace Ventura!" John James calls him in anyway, and he travels into the desert to meet Sam Jones AKA Flash Gordon!
If you weren't impressed by the special effects in the car chase, you'll love them here, as no attempt at a location shoot is deemed required and John James and Sam Jones are just recorded against a green screen with what may be a post card of a desert projected behind them. It looks amazing.
Meanwhile, Paul Rudd-lite, successfully avoiding his landlord, teleports back to his New York apartment with Kate and she is rightfully freaked out by this. He does his best to explain the Axcellerator to her, this glowing blue thingy that looks like the most complex vibrator/dildo ever, and they then try to use it to take her back to Arizona. Doesn't work. Next he says maybe his friend upstairs can fix it. Guy upstairs doesn't know what it is (great, I'm glad we detoured). Soon he gets text messages from someone unknown telling him to leave because bad guys are in the building looking for him, so they run out and get into another car chase that's just as "good" as the last one. They eventually escape.
Meanwhile, Flash Gordon is going from place to place looking for these people. He starts in Arizona, which is an odd place for him to start looking if I'm being honest. If they can track the Axcellerator they should realize they're more likely to be in New York, right? He kills Kate's boss because why wouldn't he, then soon after he's in New York to kill the guy Paul Rudd-lite asked about the Axcellerator (he has a great line in "Can you do me a favor? Can you act like you've been shot in the head?"). Considering how fucking fast this guy travels across the country, I'm surprised he doesn't have a teleportation machine of his own.
Soon after, Paul Rudd-lite and Kate's car runs out of gas. Why didn't they buy gas with the twenty bucks they established Kate had earlier in the movie? Who knows. They then look for another car to steal when Paul Rudd-lite gets a text message from the mystery helping person again, telling them they're being tracked through their cell phones and they need to get lost, then they start arguing about what to do next.
I want to make something clear here that this one scene is my favorite shot of the movie. Our heroes are bickering in the frame, and eventually Flash Gordon starts doing a hurried waddle toward them with a daffy grin right behind them. This is the exact same gleeful sprint I imagine Doomsday will do when Braveheart and Gladiator finally play in theaters. It has to be a good ten seconds of him running toward them, giggling, before they notice this guy heading toward them before they go "Oh shit!" and run for their lives. The framing and blocking of this scene is gold and it brought so much joy to my life in these dark times.
Anyway, a footchase ensues until the Acxellerator glows again and Paul Rudd-lite and Kate teleport to Utah, leaving the assassins behind. They steal a car and drive to the Grand Canyon, where they camp out, share some laughs, and have bonding time. Eventually they make their way to a retail store where they try to pull a fast scam for quick money and Paul Rudd-lite sees on the TV that his friend upstairs has been murdered and the blame has been pinned on them. Ignoring the whole fugitive thing, Paul Rudd-lite is very sad now, because upstairs guy was like a father to him or whatever, so he wants to go back to New York because reasons. He and Kate teleport back to the upstairs apartment, where Flash Gordon is waiting for them.
THEY DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!
Paul Rudd-lite tackles Flash Gordon and they teleport away, leaving Kate behind to be captured by the bad guys. Flash Gordon is left behind in a random spot as Paul Rudd-lite teleports away again, this time appearing in a lab with the scientist dude that gave him the Axcellerator, who is surprisingly not dead from that explosion. He explains that the Axcellerator transported him to his childhood home while it teleported itself with Paul Rudd-lite, explaining that the Axcellerator takes the user where they want to go deep down in their hearts, not where they ask to go. This explains why he teleported into Kate's lap in Arizona, because who doesn't want to be in a hot brunette's lap? This also explains why it wouldn't teleport Kate back home, because her heart's desire is to be with a strange car thief who suddenly appeared and sat on her.
There is also the big reveal of who has been texting him the entire movie, and it's Sean Young. This is especially jarring because it's easy to forget that Sean Young is in this movie. She tells him that Kate has been captured and taken hostage for the Axcellerator in Chile. Why Chile? Who knows. How did they get there so fast WITHOUT the teleportation device? Efficiency! Paul Rudd-lite, scientist guy, and Sean Young come up with a plan to retrieve Kate safely and keep the Axcellerator out of John James hands.
Paul Rudd-lite and John James meet at the top of a mountain, because I guess the Axcellerator won't work there for vagueness's sake. Paul Rudd-lite won't hand it over until John James releases Kate, to which John James obliges by putting her into a lift with C4 (good one, dude!). Paul Rudd-lite hands John James a fake Axcellerator, who then orders Paul Rudd-lite's execution. Then scientist guy teleports in to the middle of the room with the REAL Axcellerator, teleports out with John James, and just leaves him behind in the Sahara desert.
Paul Rudd-lite races to Kate's rescue on a snowboard and springs her out of the lift at the last moment, resulting with a slow mo jump from a cheesy digital explosion. Flash Gordon the appears with a mega snow plow and tries to run them both over, but he gloats through a window at them, while Kate pulls a knife out of her shoe, throws it, and STABS HIM IN THE HEART! This woman is a keeper!
The movie concludes three months later, as Paul Rudd-lite, Kate, and Kate's dog are now the assistants of the scientist guy. They've upgraded the Axcellerator into body suits and they take them out for a test run. Kate says "If you want me, come and find me!" and teleports away, and Paul Rudd-lite teleports after her.
Does anybody remember the movie Jumper? Of course you don't. But if you did you would remember that it tried to be a fun romp but it really isn't that fun. It seems that the type of silly sense of adventure Jumper probably should have had was misplaced and reformed itself into this micro-budgeted clownshow that is way more watchable than it should be. There is a lot wrong with this movie, but I got a kick out of it. It feels like the people who made it knew their budget limitations, and instead of scaling down the movie in an effort at quality they said "Fuck it, lets have some fun." The lead actors are fun, John James is a pretty solid bad guy, and Sam Jones is pretty hilarious in this movie. Not a lot of people are going to react to its spirit because of how poorly made and logicless it is, but I found it infectious.
COMINGSOON'S TOP CRITICS WON'T STOP RAVING ABOUT AXCELLERATOR:
"This is filmmaking at its finest. Never fear, Neverending! A video essay will be up soon!" - PG Cooper
"This incredibly nuanced film is one of the best works in years." - SnoBorderZero
"Pleasantly surprised! I'm going to give it my highest grade of a C-." - Doomsday
"I wholeheartedly endorse this event or product." - Fanible
"It's fine. Main girl needed to take her top off." - Neverending
"Best movie of the year, but considering how few movies are left post-covid, that's pretty sad." - Wyldstaar
"I couldn't stop masturbating. Best movie about a teleporting sex toy I've ever seen! Two testicles up!" - Frizzo the Clown
"Uh..." - PhantomKnight
"I wasn't paying attention." - IanTheCool
"Racist." - Deexan
"..." - Jibbs
"Penis." - thebtskink
Dracula declined to comment, but this was his reaction when I broke into his house to ask him:
