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The inane ramblings presented here by Scott Foy
(aka The Foywonder) are strictly his own opinions
and do not necessarily reflect those of the rest of the Schlocktoberfest staff
or any other sane
person living or dead. Address all fan mail, hate mail, questions,
requests, marriage proposals,
death threats, etc. directly to him using the forum link provided at the end
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Originally published Januuary 2003 on nowff.com. MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE TANK GIRL Well, 2002 was quite the year for yours truly. Let's see, in addition to writing for this site I also was awarded the Sludgie Award at this year's NOWFF, began reporting bad movie news at Badmovies.net, began doing guest reviews for Creature Corner, and in November I was extended a personal invitation from Moriarty, the #2 guy at Ain't It Cool News, to do reviews for them anytime I wanted since a guest review I did for them resulted in him recieving a ton of emails from people who wanted to see more from yours truly. Now if there was only some way to make money doing this then I'd truly be set. Oh well, something to work on for next year. For those wanting to catch up on my latest reviews just follow these links: SHARK ATTACK 3: MEGALODON (Creature-Corner) - A must see movie! MONSTURD (Ain't It Cool News) - A potential cult classic in the making! EXTREME OPS (Ain't It Cool News) - The one that generated all the emails. HALF PAST DEAD (Aint It Cool News) - Jaw droppingly awful! PINNOCHIO (Ain't It Cool News) - The worst movie of 2002! KANGAROO JACK (Ain't It Cool News) - Crap on a stick! As a New Year's resolution, I'm going to go out of my way to improve my grammatical skills in order to avoid getting hunted down and lynched by the grammar nazis at Ain't It Cool News who lynched me in the KANGAROO JACK talkback. Only at AICN could someone recieve an obscenity filled flaming for the improper usage of "its" and "it's." On the other hand, getting ripped to shreds in the AICN talkback is sort of a badge of honor. I also vow to make fewer typos and get my writings posted in a more timely manner. (Insert Laugher Here) Heck, I had a whole column on the worst Christmas movies of all time that got shelved because I wasn't able to get the still captures I needed before the holiday. Anyway, check back around Valentne's Day for my next article which is going to be about some cheesy foriegn monster movies that have never been released in the United States and, chances are, you've never even heard of them either. But before we begin the first column of 2003, I have one more piece of business to deal with from last year. Forget those list of the 10 Best or 10 Worst movies that everybody else does, this is the kind of list that really says something about the absolute worst of the worst. Without further ado, I present to you the 2nd annual... THE TOP 10 MOVIES I DIDN'T PAY TO SEE IN 2002 AND, DAMMIT, I PLAN TO KEEP IT THAT WAY 10) SCOOBY
DOO Ah, JUWANNA MAN. A cross-dressing basketball comedy minus the comedy that nobody wanted and even fewer went to see. I don't know exactly why that movie repelled me more than any other film in 2002. It just did. You have no idea how hard it was to narrow that list down to only ten because I personally counted 21 titles from which to choose from. There were some major stinkers this past year. 2002 was truly a banner year for bad comedies.
DISS OF THE DRAGON
The fine folks at UFO Films, makers of such fine features as PYTHON, PYTHON 2, EPOCH, SHARK HUNTER, INTERCEPTOR FORCE 1 & 2, and DEEP CORE have struck again with their latest production entitled DRAGON FIGHTER. This world class production debuted on the Sci-Fi Channel on January 4, 2003. Once again, UFO Films did not disappoint. Actually, they did disappoint but I'm talking about in terms of making a really bad movie. I mean, look who produced it, look what network it is premiering on, and consider the fact that the flick stars Dean "Worst Superman Ever" Cain. Seriously, could there ever be any doubt that it wouldn't stink up the joint? I think the Sci-Fi Channel would easily take the mantle of "the worst movie studio on television" from TBS if they actually financed the majority of the original movies they show. Topping it off, the Sci-Fi Channel's website description for the film boldly stated that DRAGON FIGHTER would feature "the most startlingly real depiction of these mythic beasts ever put on film." We'll see about that. DRAGON
FIGHTER opens
in what we're told is Britain during the Middle Ages where we see some
medieval knights chasing this poorly rendered CGI dragon into a huge
cave. Less than 60 seconds into the flick and that claim of "the
most startlingly real depiction of these mythic beasts ever put to film"
is shot to hell. DRAGONSLAYER
Speaking of Dean Cain, he's the military helicopter pilot who is currently chaperoning this scientist who is carrying this top-secret case with him. Despite the fact that Cain's character is out of the loop on the goings on at the research facility, he still manages to deduce using keen Sherlock Holmes-style deductions that they're performing cloning research. This correct guess stuns the Russian scientist, Dr. Drakovich. In fact, it stuns him so much that he decides that since Cain knows he might as well become the new head of security for the research facility. So if I'm taxiing a scientist that works for a top-secret government agency and I correctly guess what sort of highly classified research they're doing there then I too could suddenly find myself with a high security clearance and a new gig just like that? Cool! The helicopter encounters some mechanical problems but lands safely on the helipad at which time the graphic HELIPAD - DAY appears on-screen and stays on the screen for like a full minute while Cain discovers a fuel leak problem. The director of this movie must have been watching way too much 24 or seen Mike Figgis' film TIMECODE one too many times because the film features lots of split screen and multiple screen shots. You have one box with one character and another box with somebody else and another box with something else or one box with a character doing something and another box showing the same thing from another angle. At one point in the film there were six mini-screens on-screen at once. There's nothing wrong with this technique but it gets grossly overused in this movie although as the film progresses it will be used less and less as if even the director grew tired of it. Let me say right now that DRAGON FIGHTER is so terrible that I came to the realization that there really wasn't even anything worth using for still captures. Even the dragon itself isn't worth the time and effort to grab a still of. Look at the glimpse of the dragon on the video box above. I'm not even sure that's the same dragon from the movie. However, this article would be really dull without some pics to spice it up so I've decided to include images of various well known dragons all of which are vastly superior to the one in this movie. You can even put your cursor over the pics for more information. Duh! Inside the Northern California
research facility, which used to be a Cold War bomb shelter, the Russian
scientist introduces Cain to another Russian comrade whose primary job
seems to be to just stand there and look menacing. From there Cain meets
his future wife, a perky female scientist who looks more like a woman
you'd see in a Anyway, Cain meets her while she's chasing after this adorable puppy named Houdini, which she reveals to be a cloned puppy that is 1 of 62. Instead of Houdini, I think they should have taken a nod from Star Trek: Voyager and named the dog 1 of 62. She then gives Cain a tour of the place introducing him to the rest of the potential dragon fodder including my personal favorite, a deaf chef named Cookie. It should be noted that whenever a new character is introduced a graphic featuring their picture with some text gives minute details about them as if any of that means anything to the audience. In further proof of what a fine production DRAGON FIGHTER is, the female Russian scientist's place of birth was listed as L.A. Is there a Los Angeles, Russia that I'm not aware of? The majority of these introductions
take place in the mess hall where Dr. Drakovich has called a meeting
to explain their plans to produce a clone from the DNA taken from the
fossils of a previously unknown species of giant reptile found in a
British cave and that the mysterious creature is an actual dragon. As
soon as this meeting begins a graphic appears on- As preparations are made for the cloning procedure to be done, everyone is either giddy or nervous. Cain, being smarter than most people in a movie like this, decides to try and fix the fuel line on the chopper so that they'll all have a means of escape when the dragon gets loose and starts killing everyone. Unfortunately, the Breck Girl starts flirting with him while he's working so he doesn't finish the repairs. However, we do learn in this scene that Cain's character has a severe phobia regarding fire. HA! HA! HA! Why aren't you laughing? The guy who is going to end up fighting the fire breathing dragon is deathly afraid of fire! This is comedic irony, people! Laugh! I command you to laugh! Laugh, damn you! Laugh! Let's just summarize the next
15 minutes of this crapfest quickly. The cloning procedure takes place,
the dragon embryo grows into a full creature in less than an hour, two
red shirts enter the lab to check on the specimen, dragon comes to life
and vaporizes them, it blasts a hole through the back of the lab and
escapes into the facilities tunnel system, the explosion took out the
communications system so they can't contact anyone on the outside, and
Dr. Drakovich talks them into trying to subdue the creature instead
of killing it while Cain I have to stop again to comment on more recycled sets. This entire facility looks suspiciously like the same research facility used in PYTHONS 2 and as the same sets used as the interior of the submarine in SHARK HUNTER and as the interior of the space complex in the INTERCEPTOR FORCE films. Who says it doesn't pay to recycle? I also have to say that the guy playing Drak (I'm sick of typing out the full name!) looks like the result of a gene splicing experiment involving Corbin Bernsen and Stellan Skarsgard.
Cain runs back to safety, informs everyone of the latest casualty, and then tells them that they won't be able to escape via elevator because it's been "fried." The editing out of the scary Russians death is so awkward that you honestly don't know for certain that he's dead and expect him to show up again later just in time to save someone from the monster as is done in many other films. So following some more bickering and discussion of dragon physiology, they formulate a plan to lure it to the air conditioning duct because as Dean Cain tells us, reptiles nest near cooler areas. I guess in addition to being a soldier and a helicopter pilot, Cain's character is also a part-time animal biologist. For reasons I'm still not completely sure of, they need a laptop computer to do this and the specific one they need is in the quarters of this one Paul Giamatti look-a-like scientist who has suddenly developed a case of Sniveling Bitch Syndrome. When the cowardly scientist refuses to go with Cain to retrieve the laptop, Cain goes mental and threatens to chop off the guy's hand with a meat cleaver. This Middle Eastern form of persuasion works and the petrified scientist agrees to lead Cain to his laptop. After getting to the guy's
room without incident, Cain ends up having to leave the cowardly scientist
behind because the scientist has suddenly lost his will to live and
would rather stay in his room drinking vodka and listening to his stereo
rather than try and escape. I don't know if he was more traumatized
by the dragon of Dean Cain going psycho with a meat cleaver. Cain makes
it back to the rest of the group after outrunning another fireball and
the cowardly scientist dies in a manner even more confusing than the
scary Russian guys. Either the director is a complete idiot or the Sci-Fi
Channel edited out Cain, holding the Enchanted
Sword of Shoddy Screenwriting to the doc's throat, brings up what he
found in Drak's quarters to the group. Drak responds by whining about
never having any privacy and wanting to get his own place just as soon
as he gets a job. Okay, he didn't say any of that. Instead, Drak begins
to experience the early stages of what I like to call "Sudden On-set
Mad Scientist Syndrome" or SOMSS for short. Scientific characters
that suffer from SOMSS start out acting really arrogant or high strung
or both and by the end of the movie they've entered the stage where
they rarely blink their eyes and tend to either shout or mumble long,
drawn out, insane ramblings. Where was I? That's right. Dr. Drak gives this wild-eyed speech about dragons and dinosaurs and then they do whatever it is they wanted to with the laptop but things don't go well and the facilities fusion reactor goes critical meaning the whole place will self-destruct in about 15 minutes. Oh, I forgot to mention that we find out that Cookie isn't really deaf but is actually just some hick who pretended to be handicapped to get a job. The point of this and for that matter of this character is unknown because none of it actually figures into the plot other than to provide a very brief attempt at humor. Okay, so the place is going to explode and everyone wants out except for Drak who wants to save his precious dragon. They all basically say the hell with it and make a break for the elevator, which they will ride to the surface and then escape via Cain's helicopter. I thought Cain said the elevator was "fried" by the dragon? I guess the screenwriter forgot. The guy in charge of script continuity for this film should be flogged. Mere moments after insisting they fix the fusion reactor so that the dragon won't be killed in the explosion, Drak opts to run with them to the elevator. Did I say flogged? I meant tortured. Along the way, shampoo girl stops to save Houdini because losing your favorite cloned puppy would make her life not worth living. When Cain found that sword I was convinced that he would end up using it to kill the dragon. Nope! The sword just get's left behind. So what exactly was the point of him taking the sword in the first place other than to once again menace a supporting character with a large blade? I think I could drop my pants, stick a magic marker between my butt cheeks, squat over a piece of paper, and still manage to write a better screenplay than this! There'd probably also be more people who would pay to see that but I really don't want to go down that road. Forget I ever said anything. So they all make it to the
elevator but the dragon shows up and starts sumo wrestling with the
control panel causing a mechanical problem. Basically, the doors won't
close all the way and the elevator won't go up. They now have to climb
up through the hatch in the top of the elevator and then climb the elevator
shaft's ladder to the surface and then make it to the helicopter. Since
the doors are partially open but And then there were three -
Cain, shampoo girl, and the Russian spokesman for SOMSS. Actually, there
are four if you count the cloned puppy in shampoo girl's backpack. They
mourn the loss of their two friends for a split second and then climb
the ladder, make a mad dash to the helicopter, and get the hell out of
there. The dragon that was big enough to take up an entire hallway and
whose head was too big to squeeze through the 2/5ths closed elevator doors
is suddenly small enough to fit inside the elevator and then becomes even
smaller as it squeezes through that hatch in the elevator car's roof before
climbing out of the shaft. Maybe they should have named the dragon Puff
because it truly is a magic dragon. Not since the Tri-Star
GODZILLA have I seen such idiotic, unexplained size
transformations. I really hate this movie! Drak is now happy and enters the final stage of SOMSS. As the dragon pursues them, the chopper begins experiencing mechanical problems again because Cain never fixed that fuel leak. While he radios the local military base about needing air support, Doctor Drak decides he wants out of the movie and opens up the side door of the copter so that he can take some snapshots of his precious dragon with this really cheap looking camera that he apparently had been carrying around in his pocket for the duration of the movie. Cain is informed that air support will be there in 3 minutes but in typical b-movie fashion, Cain yells at them to be there in two minutes. As Drak snaps pictures, the dragon swoops in closer and does something to Drak (probably impaled him with a wing) that was too graphic to be broadcast by the network that cancelled Farscape and the mad scientist falls out of the chopper. The dragon, which is now the size of a small plane, then rams the side of the helicopter causing Cain and shampoo girl to momentarily pretend they're on the deck of the Starship Enterprise when shield power is low.
The fighter pilots are in disbelief at what they are seeing while Cain assures them over the radio that it is a real dragon and proceeds to bark orders at them as if he's their superior. If I were one of the pilots I'd shoot down the chopper too and claim it was a friendly fire accident. The jets can't lock their missiles onto the dragon because "it's organic" and so they decide to just try to annoy it to death by repeatedly buzzing it. Did they forget that F-16's have machine guns too? Unfortunately for the U.S. Air Force, dragon fire doesn't require a targeting system as the dragon blasts one jet, which then slams into another jet. Why the dragon hasn't already done the same to the helicopter remains a mystery. Cain is annoyed at the incompetence of the our armed forces and decides to kill the dragon himself with a plan so ludicrous even Dean Devlin would roll his eyes at it. He tells the remaining fighter
jets to switch their missiles to heat seeking. Pardon my ignorance of
military hardware but can a missile be switched to heat seeking with
the push of a button? Cain then presses a button or two and dumps the
helicopter's fuel onto the dragon, which just happened to be flying
directly behind the chopper. Now But it's not over yet because the chopper now runs out of fuel and they have to make an emergency crash landing. Actually, we only see Cain and hair girl reacting to what is happening outside the chopper because clearly the filmmakers couldn't afford to show us the emergency landing. If they couldn't afford it then they shouldn't have bothered. This is one of those things that you actually have to see for it to be an effective scene. Even worse, after landing safely, Cain starts acting like Han Solo after the Death Star got blown up and Hot Girl #1 reacts to everything that has happened to them like someone who has just experienced a major adrenaline rush and is now really horny. At least she finally let's that poor dog out of the backpack. The two make plans for dinner date but agree not to go to any Chinese restaurants with the word "dragon" in its name. HA! HA! HA! Laugh, damn you! But
DRAGON FIGHTER simply refuses to end! No, we now go back
to the underground facility where two government guys in biohazard suits
are wandering around. Apparently everyone really over reacted to the
threat of a fusion reaction exploding because the underground lab that
supposedly blew up just looks like it could use a light cleaning. Seems
an underground fusion reactor explosion just knocks stuff over, leaves
some scuffmarks on the wall, and causes a Hiroshima-sized explosion
above ground. One of the two mystery men then starts talking about how
research DRAGON
FIGHTER is total crap and fails to be entertaining even
in a so bad its good way. It is nothing short of awful. DRAGON
FIGHTER had a script so bad that it would even insult Albert
Pyun's intelligence.It took a promising premise and wasted it by making
turning into the worst ALIEN
rip-off since CARNOSAUR 2.
Absolutely zero imagination went into the making of this run-of-the-mill
monster mash. God, this movie sucked! End of story! I'm done with this
wretched piece of garbage! If you insist on wasting you time and money
watching it, DRAGON FIGHTER
will be released on video/dvd on video February 18th. See it with someone
you hate. Better yet, don't see it at all. So,
in conclusion... MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE CHASERS |
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This website and all graphics Copyright
© 2001-2003 |
and
REIGN OF FIRE have more realistic
looking dragons on their posters than the one in this flick. Also, aren't
dragons supposed to be bigger than a grizzly bear? This dragon is more
like a gargoyle minus the human facial features. These knights suck
at dragon fighting, but luckily for them they're able to trigger an
avalanche that traps the dragon inside the cave. If I'm not mistaken,
the exteriors used here are the same used in the opening of PYTHON
2. Following the avalanche, a helicopter flies overhead
and a graphic appears on-screen telling us it is now modern day California.
If this is a UFO production then you can rest assured that the film
was made on location in Bulgaria or some other part of Eastern Europe
and you can expect English speaking Bulgarian/Russian/Czech actors to
play key roles. And let it also be noted that the CGI helicopter we're
seeing is bad to the point of being embarrassing. Guess they spent all
the big bucks animating the dragon and getting Dean Cain to star in
this turkey.
shampoo
commercial than in a military cloning lab. Folks, I'm not exaggerating
when I say this woman has an incredible head of hair. The kind women
go into a salon with a picture of and say, "I
want hair just like her." I looked up the actress on
screen
reading MESS HALL - DAY even though the
we've been in the mess hall for the past 5 minutes. This is also the
last time one of these place/time of day graphics appears begging one
to wonder what the hell the purpose was to begin with? Gotta love that
continuity! It's also during this meeting that the film establishes
that Dr. Drakovich doesn't particularly like Cain making one wonder
why the hell he gave him a new job in the facility? Drakovich tells
the scientists that he wants to clone this creature ASAP before red
tape can interfere and also for the prestige of being first because
he believes there are others out there who also have some DNA from this
mysterious fossil and plan to clone it themselves. Oh really? Is that
UFO cult cloning dragons too?
argues
that they should kill it or just get the hell out of there or kill it
and then get the hell out there. Cain and the facilities animal expert
armed with shotguns loaded with these powerful tranquilizer darts venture
into what appears to be the subterranean facilities' basement. Since
this scene wouldn't be complete unless they blatantly ripped off ALIEN,
shampoo girl watches a motion sensor that detects a blip approaching
them. They wisely choose to split up and immediately the dragon kills
the animal guy. More brilliant work on the part of the filmmakers is
shown as Cain prepares to attack the dragon. He reaches into his pocket
and pulls out a tranquilizer dart and then tosses it on the ground in
favor of pulling a shotgun shell out and loading the gun. Yes, he had
been running around hunting this monster with an unloaded weapon! Of
course, bullets can't pierce the dragons hide so Cain gets to outrun
a fireball while screaming like a woman. This leads to the scene where
he's banging on one of the security doors for everyone to let him back
in to the secure room they're in but the Dr. Drakovich doesn't want
to for no legitimate reason other than the fact that he's just a major
jerk. Before finally being let back in the room, Cain gets to utter
the movie's best line of atrocious dialogue, "Doctor,
you've created a real live fire breathing dragon and it's really pissed
so open the damn door!" 
Everyone
bickers for a few minutes and then Cain and the scary Russian guy head
out again to do something to the elevator so they can all escape. Unfortunately,
the dragon shows up. Unfortunately, the dragon kills the scary Russian
guy. Unfortunately, whatever the dragon did to the scary Russian guy
was too graphic to be broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel so we don't actually
see his death. Instead he's alive one moment and the next the dragon
is walking out of the area where the scary Russian was and starts chasing
Cain. 
stuff
that even before the dragon shows up to kill him because this death
scene makes zero sense. Basically, the guy hears the dragon and opens
his door while waiving a baseball bat and challenging the dragon to
come get some. Since there's no dragon, he closes the door. Then we
see the dragon running down a hallway. Then the formerly cowardly turned
suicidal scientist angrily yells a bleeped out obscenity and smashes
the door's control panel with the bat causing the door to open with
the dragon standing right there to, at least what it appears to do thanks
to more Sci-Fi Channel editing, chomp his head off. I assure this scene
is even more confusing than it appear here written out. 
Usually
there is no progression of stages exhibited by a character suffering
from SOMSS. They just inexplicably go from being an anal-retentive prick
to megalomaniac with a God complex at the screenwriter's discretion.
When an SOMSS sufferer enters the final stage of the disease, their
death will soon come most likely at the hands of something they've created
or are responsible for. Screenwriters think this last past is the character
getting they're comeuppance. Most viewers call it cliched. Another great
example of SOMSS can be found in the movie
BATS.
the
opening isn't big enough for the dragon to stick it's head in, it instead
begins giving the elevator doors a series of running headbutts that
you'd think would hurt it just as much. The dragon's ramming also causes
the elevator to shake violently making it difficult to climb up. Cain,
the Breck Girl, and Drak make it up but Cookie and the female Russian
scientist who was born in Los Angeles are too busy pretending they're
trying to walk through one of those funhouse tunnels that rotates because
of the dragon's repeated ramming. However, she does have enough equilibrium
to shoot the dragon several times when Cain drops her a firearm and
even uses Pacino's famous line from SCARFACE
before firing in a painfully bad attempt at being witty. Unfortunately,
bullets have no effect. Seeing as how Cain already knew that firsthand
you wonder why he bothered giving her a gun. Right then the doors open
all the way and the dragon now decides to just spit fire and incinerates
Cookie and Stable Mable. Clearly dragons aren't very bright or else
it would have just done that in the first place. Also, I blame Cain
for their deaths. Bullets don't work, moron! You only helped her antagonize
it further! Have I mentioned how much this movie sucks?
Just
then the fighter jets show up. It's only been about a minute since the
radio conversation so once again the demand to arrive sooner than the
time they say it will take pays off. This was the only part of the movie
that actually gave me some hope. Maybe they would do a dragon vs. fighter
jets battle that would actually be entertaining? Nope. They couldn't
even do that right!
how
Cain knew the dragon was directly behind them in just the right spot
to have the fuel dumped on it is never explained. I guess he used The
Force. The dragon has now flown off to the side of the helicopter and,
luckily for Cain, it's the side with the door. Cain's luck continues
because he snatches the flare gun (Is a flare gun something you're normally
find on a military helicopter?), opens the door, and shoots the dragon
with it causing it to burst into flames. With a heat-seeking target
to lock onto, the pilots fire their heat seeking missiles and blow up
the dragon. Everyone cheers except for me and I suspect many other people
watching at home who can't believe they just wasted two hours of their
life watching this crap. 
facilities
like this always have a second identical lab performing the same experiments
below the real lab just in case of a catastrophe so that the research
won't be lost. Say what? That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Low and behold, there's a second identical lab that looks completely
spotless and, sure enough, there's a second dragon that comes to life
at just the right moment and kills the guys in suits setting up a potential
sequel. I vomit. The end.
