#1997films

Con Air defies traditional movie reviewing conventions. You can easily argue that it's bad. The premise is zany, Nicholas Cage's performance is bewildering, and sometimes it’s so over-the-top you’ve got to laugh. One must also consider the entertainment value, however. When it wants to be funny, it is, and the wide variety of action sequences will make your jaw drop. It may be bouncing off the walls in a straight jacket, but largely, that's the tone it's going for. Even if it isn’t, things come together nicely.

Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) is about to be released from prison after serving 8 years of a prison sentence for bogus charges. While being transferred, several high-profile super-criminals led by Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom (John Malkovich) highjack their transport plane. Refusing to let this collection of serial killers, rapists, psychotics, and megalomaniacs escape, Cameron stays aboard and, with the help of U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack), attempts to thwart their efforts to go free.

You can’t talk about Con Air without addressing Nicolas Cage. I don’t know what director Simon West was thinking. Cage is armed with two head-scratchers: a ridiculous mullet and a bad Louisiana accent. Neither are necessary and maintaining said accent appears to occupy so much of Cage’s mental capacity he struggles to emote in any scene.

The premise sounds like something from a DC comic book - in a good way. In fact, someone should rips this film off and substitutes Steve Buscemi’s character with the Joker, Danny Trejo’s with Killer Croc, and the rest of the cast with similarly colored supervillains. In most movies, you’ve got one, maybe two baddies with outlandish dialogue and memorable scenes. Here you get a buffet of them. Some you like, some you hate, all of them have your attention.

Sometimes, the thugs Cameron is forced against are bit too much, but once more, I find myself forgiving  the film because of the overall experience. When it comes to the action, it’s wall-to-wall with plenty of variety. As Cyrus and his followers make their escape, you'll be thrilled, wondering what explosion-laden location they’ll land in next. All realism is absent but – and I can’t emphasize this enough - you won’t care. It’s too much fun seeing everyone in these roles. Plus, once in a while, you just want to see a pile of human waste get the human waste beaten out of them by a hero that's basically a living cliché. Sometimes, that's just what the doctor called for. This is the kind of picture you show to your father and bond over. It’s a man’s movie with a lot of laughs. Some deliberate. John Cusack and many others have genuinely comedic dialogue. Other times, you howl at the movie’s expense... but not really? The point is the film delivers what you want to see.

To properly enjoy Con Air, you need to know exactly what you're getting into. At times it's like it was written by a committee of 13-year-olds hell-bent on making the most awesome Nicholas Cage movie without understanding how to properly use him. That’s also what makes it endearing. I’d call Con Air dumb fun, but that implies it's never genuinely good. (Unrated, Extended Cut on DVD, November 4, 2016)

The 1997 horror-comedy Jack Frost (not to be confused with the 1998 Michael Keaton family film) is aware of how ridiculous its premise is and mines it for comedy effectively. The horrible special effects, idiotic characters, and slapped-together plot make it a bad movie. It's also kind of fun.

On the way to his execution, serial killer Jack Frost (Scott MacDonald) is caught in an accident that fuses his cells with snow on the ground. Returning to Snowmonton, Jack resumes his killing spree, working his way up to the man who sent him to the chair: Sheriff Sam Tiler (Christopher Allport).

The picture’s an excuse to have a killer snowman impaling people with icicles or killing hapless innocents with Christmas decorations. Everything else is an afterthought. The characters are flat and introduced only so they can be killed later, the dialogue is groan-inducing, and the plot unimaginative. Even the special effects are terrible. You don’t have to live up in the frosty wastes of Canada to tell this film was shot in California with phony-looking snow (in some cases it’s just cotton) drizzled over a few branches or bits of sidewalk here and there. Then there’s Jack himself. The monster’s design is no good either. It’s nothing like the cool monster I vividly remember seeing on that lenticular VHS cover when I was a child; it’s the old carrot nose and lumps of coal for eyes. There’s a scene where he has icicle for teeth, but it's brief. You can’t keep a straight face as the incredible fake-looking creature kills one person after another, sometimes in ways that don’t make sense. There’s a poor fella who gets killed by an ax in a way that I’ve never seen before – but that’s because no filmmaker would ever choose to emulate Michael Cooney’s writing and directing choices.

It’s difficult to tell if Jack Frost tries to be good, or knew it was going to be hot steamy garbage from the moment it was conceived. Several comedic scenes are effective. I criticized the special effects, but there’s no way the people working on this film didn’t know they weren't convincing. In a way, it fits the picture’s idiotic premise. I’m not saying you couldn’t make a legitimately good snowman-themed horror film (though considering how well 2017’s The Snowman did, perhaps not), but if you're spoofing supernatural slashers, there's no need to break the bank. I will also give it that there are a few clever moments here and there. Being made of snow, Jack can melt and then re-assemble/refreeze himself at will, making for some cool scenes where he slips under doors or effortlessly moves from one side of a room to another. I don’t know how he manages to transport his carrot nose, coal eyes, and scarf while in liquid form, if he needs those to be complete, how he managed to even get to Snowmonton… but I’ll forgive it.

As a "so bad it's good movie", I can only give “Jack Frost” a mild recommendation. It'll make you laugh, some kills are inventive, and you'll find a couple of memorable moments but compare this to Killer Klowns from Outer Space. It trumps Jack Frost in every department. This just isn't there. The price I paid for the Blu-ray of Jack Frost was way too high, but I’m also kind of glad I finally saw it. (On Blu-ray, November 29, 2017)