She (1985)

According to the end credits, this movie was based on the novel by H. Rider Haggard. According to Sam, who has read the book and watched the movie with me, the only thing the two have in common is the title. I certainly hope so.

It's year 23 after the Cancellation (whatever that might be) and the Norks are up to no good. Norks, for those of you who don't know, are guys who ride around on horses wearing Nazi football helemts and other such odd accoutrements.

Tom and Dick lose Tom's sister Hari (no, I'm not kidding on those names) to the evil Norks when the Nazi footballers ride through a random town and do random things.

If I may, I'd like to digress here for a moment. Why is it that every single fantasy movie opens with a gang of evil guys riding through a helpless village slaying people? Is it an attempt to establish to the audience right away who the "bad guys" and the "good guys" are? If so, I'd like to see, just once, the obligatory sacking of the helpless village end in the revelation that the sackers are the good guys, and this is actually the end of the movie where the good guys kill all the bad guys. Then the movie would be only two or three minutes long, and it would save me the trouble of watching this repetitive stuff.

Anyway, back to the review at hand. Tom and Dick wander around a bit, looking for Hari but not having much luck. They get captured by a random woman, who randomly does something random to them. Somehow they end up in a temple where all the worshippers are headbanging and chanting "She, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she, she," ad nauseum and some random prisoners are doing the funky chicken up by the altar. (They're chained, and supposedly they're struggling against their bonds. But the struggling is so half-hearted, it looks more like dancing.)

She (who is supposed to be a goddess, but is really just Sandahl "No Talent" Bergman) comes in, does nothing, and leaves. Tom and Dick somehow figure out that She knows who captured Hari and where to find her. Tom ends up getting captured, and probably Dick does too, but I don't really remember, and I don't really see how it matters anyway. Tom is nearly killed when he is randomly beaten and left for dead by She and her gang. A random guy finds Tom and brings him home with him. Tom wakes up and leaves, thus ending the random guy's involvement with the movie.

Meanwhile, She is going through some trials of her own. She randomly enters a cave where there are some large crates. Inside the large crates are some large guys, who bust out and attack her.

Now wait a minute. Let's back up the clue train a bit and see if we left anybody at the last stop. Ah yes, it seems that the script writers got off somewhere around the introduction of random guy, and we pulled away from the station without them; this scene is the result. I can buy crates in a cave -- this world is portrayed as post-apocalyptic, so there would be remnants of the old world lying around. I can buy guys in a cave -- what better place to keep out of the elements at night? But what I can't buy is guys inside the crates that are inside the cave. What the heck is the point of that? How did they even get in there, considering they had to bust out when She came along? How did they even know she was there? Is that their whole purpose in life, to bust out of these crates whenever people come along and kill them? Why not just wait behind the crates -- that'd save a lot of energy and time -- plus they wouldn't have to get new crates every time. And I haven't even mentioned the worst part yet. Not only are there guys in crates in this cave, Frankenstein's monster also lives in this cave. I do not lie. I would never dream of making this stuff up.

Anyway, She defeats Frankenstein and the Crate Guys (hey, that's a good name for a band) by biting Franky's neck. All the air leaks out of him (?!?), and his head explodes. Then She takes a bath, and a random old hag tells her a random prophecy while we randomly get a glimpse of her random breasts (She's, not the hag's). Then more random stuff happens.

Tom and Dick eventually end up travelling with She and some other woman to find Hari. At first Tom and Dick are prisoners, but later they're not. On the way to the city of the Norks, they meet up with some communal vampires, a psychic communist, a huge guy wearing a pink tutu who lives with another guy in a plastic bubble in the middle of the woods, the "mad, androgynous rabble" that was promised on the back of the video box (again, I am not making this up -- they were supposed to be mutants, I think), and a guy named Xenon who guards the bridge to Norkville and is the focal point of the most insipid scene in film history. I'm not even going to describe it to you -- you'll just have to watch the movie.

Everyone ends up at Norkville, where they infiltrate the ranks of the Norks by fighting each other. They are found out, and the Norkish leader vows to assault She's worshippers the next day. They escape Norkville, but there isn't enough time for them to go back and warn the others. Instead, the six of them decide to take on the Nork army. They do this by building, about ten feet away from the gates of Norkville, their defenses. They dig a huge pit filled with spikes (into which not a single Nork falls), a pit of fire that the Norks could easily run around if not for the fact that they are obviously brain dead, and some random boxes and trip wires.

Amazingly, this actually works. The Norks come piling out of Norkville, charge right through the fire they should have gone around, fall over the not-so-cleverly-hidden trip wires, and basically act like complete goobers. Yikes.

Eventually, Tom, Dick, and Hari are re-united, people randomly fall in love, and everyone lives randomly ever after.

This movie was utterly horrible as far as movies go, but it was definitely a good bad movie, as it provided Sam and I with almost non-stop laughs. Definitely recommended.

Best line: "Careful of my arms; they tend to fall off."

Scene to watch for: Tom, Dick, and She hide in plain view.

Things that make you go "Huh?": Everything having to do with Xenon.