ACCION MUTANTE (1993)

In the future, the world will be ruled by attractive people, so a group of unattractive (very unattractive) terrorists kidnap the daughter of a billionaire and ask for a $10 million ransom. Then the gang sees a news report saying it’s actually $100 million! Their boss lied to them! They start fighting among themselves and crash their hooptie spaceship onto a mining planet that looks a lot like the mining planet of Pandora in 2009’s Borderlands video game. More stuff happens, but it’s all really sweaty and gnarly-looking. And not in a good way. It’s not often that I find myself watching an (entire) movie that’s gross to physically look at twice, but I wanted to revisit ACCION MUTANTE because I remember buying a VHS bootleg of it back in the 1990’s (from Blackest Heart Media, I think) and I disliked it. Watching it again on a crystal clear Blu-ray…it still looks like shit.

Undercooked story, boring acting, illogical senses of pain and healing that make pretty much everything meaningless, lots of sweaty unwashed people everywhere, dumb gunfights where everybody is shooting hundreds of bullets all over the places willy-nilly, zero characters that I felt any connection or empathy with, dumb ending that resolves nothing.

Watch ACCION MUTANTE if you want, I just felt the entire thing to be meh. That said, I do appreciate any inspiration it had on the Borderlands series. Those first few games were amazing. Part 4 was a snoozer though. Yawn!

Writer and Director Alex de la Iglesia would go on to make 2013’s WITCHING AND BITCHING which I really enjoyed.

Pointless side note: I found a newspaper article stating that ACCION MUTANTE was set in 2092, but I don't remember that being shown in the actual movie.

THE PRINCE OF TIDES (1991)

Nick Nolte is a fully grown man who still talks to the horrible and abusive family that he grew up with. (Hint: he should have dumped them completely 35 years ago.) So now, because he’s still wrapped up with these human life-anchors, he must go to New York City to talk to his sister’s psychiatrist (Barbara Streisand) instead of spending time with his own wife and three daughters. Once in NYC, Nolte is a grumpy bear (Grrrrr!) but eventually realizes that instead of bumping heads with the doctor, he should be bumping uglies! Ahhh, yes, the old Hollywood movie logic of cheating on your wife to fix your problems routine.

As far as early 1990’s American dramas go, THE PRINCE OF TIDES is alright. I think it might even be a good example of “Oscar bait”. I’m not 100% sure about this since I don’t have any friends who like movies (or for that matter even know what the medium is since I still live on Io and time-blog back to 21st Century Earth from 3955), but I’ve heard the term in historical Earth documents and find it interesting. And it was successful as Oscar bait because TPOT did receive 7 nominations. Even one for Best Picture! What the hell? Wisely though, THE PRINCE OF TIDES got crushed at the 64th Academy Awards by the far superior THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and didn't win a goddamn thing.

Okay pace, lots of Nick Nolte’s voice, zero nudity, some cool NYC locations, Nick Nolte mowing an entire football field with a push lawnmower, IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (1955) on TV, a hardback copy of Stephen King’s “The Tommyknockers” moving on its own, a lackluster ending that really didn’t seem like his life had changed much at all from the beginning of the movie (you know, besides cheating on his wife), cleaning up the room by moving the Chinese food leftovers from the table to a bar and then leaving the room, okay photography, mid-level direction, no real emotional ups or downs, movie posters for THE FRESHMAN (1990) and FLATLINERS (1990), a dude that seems to be too small for football trying out for a football team.

As far as entertainment goes THE PRINCE OF TIDES is still watchable. I doubt it will change your life or anything, but it's an okay lazy afternoon time-waster. I gotta few solid chuckles out of it. (Full disclosure: I actually woke up my cat, Charlie, by singing too loud towards the end of the movie. True story.]