The crapiness of the To Boldly Flee villians
Ok, so while I am not a part of Channel Awesome (And this type of post will probably be sure to stop me from ever going there) or change the channel, I do still feel like I can do my part by reviewing certain aspects of their movies and such. So, without further to do, let’s look at the lame, poor excuse of villians for the film.
Now, Mechakara is excempt from this because Linkara did a fine damn job of keeping his character true to fact and was able to keep him on straight. Granted, the script wanted to turn Mechakara into a sterotypical robot villian (Seriously, if you want drama, then don’t make the villian overly comedic), Linkara was good enough to not only keep them in check, but made him the best part of the movie. Even if the assimilation thing doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. That part just felt like “Gee, the Borg are silly looking, let’s make Mechakara into a borg expie for the laughs!”
But, then we get into the other villians and they fail to live up to the standards set by the side-villian. For instance, Turrel is a complete and utter joke, and while this works fine if this was a pure comedy, not so much here. Expecially when compared to the spectacular villian in the previous film. Turrel here, is presented as an arch-nemsis, the one who is dogging the critic all the way through. The problem being, he has no real connection with the critic outside of the one review. It doesn’t help that his over-the-top hamminess (Provided by Spoony), detracts from much of the menace that would’ve helped with the drama. As it stands, however, there is a little bit of a disconnect.
For instance, we have had scene upon scene of Critic feeling dour and sad about his lot in life. Then what do we cut to? Turrel misquoting Shakespere because...it happened in Star Trek? Even though in VI, that was part of his character as he was inspired by the books of old and it was Shakesphere that helped to translate Kilngon to English.
Then we have Zod...and no, Doug’s Terrence Stamp impression is not good. It just plain sucks! Stamp has this wonderful presence, this menance to him that reminds you that this guy conquers and is a perfect foil to Reeve’s more down home charm. This guy, not so much. Critic, when he first sees Zod, acts like he has seen this guy before and has a deep unnatural connection with him, one that spans generations. Why though? Just why, other than a poor excuse to make a freaking Kirk reference. What also annoys me is the lack of superpowers.
Now, I know the excuse. Because in Superman II he was hit with the red solar rays that depowered him and yadda yadda. Ok, let me ask this, why isn’t he dead or in prision? Or excuted for his crimes in a war council. Yeah, remember in Superman II, he was thrown into the abyss by Superman. So, following the logic that no one but me has seen the Donner cut, then Zod should be dead. But, if we go by the tv cut, he is last seen being taken away by the police. However, Donner is the only one where he is in the Phantom Zone, but that also brings problems to the table as Superman changed history so Zod was never released.
So, wich is it? Our police are utter imcompetant, Zod is immortal, or did the plot hole open the Phantom Zone. Actually, now that I think about it...Why is Zod working for the emperor, oh sorry, the ex-no I mean emperor? I mean, think about it, Turrel because he hates the Critic and Mechakara is there because he wants the gauntlet. Zod is there because, he needed the paycheck? Zod would never lower himself to work with the humans and instead, would’ve had Palpatine lite hung up by his throat for even daring to suggest he work under anyone.
So, does Zod do anything in the movie, other than stand around in “spandex”. (For the record, in the movie, it was not spandex.) Nope! Does he do anything cool as expected from a badass movie villian? Nope. Does he spout his catchphrase because that is all there was to Zod appearently? What do you think?
And then we have the Excutetor...oh, hell, I am just gonna call it as it is. It’s emperor Palpatine, even Linkara made fun of that. Palpatine-lite, is a freaking poor excuse of a big bad. The way they write him, plays him up as the final fight for our critics, the one they are standing against. I suppose this is supposed to be an allegory for how the critics are rebels against the man, but, we have some problems with this. First of all, how did he get his own fleet and Death Bomb, where did he make it? Why did Hollywood signoff on this?
For a man who is also supposed to be our big bad, he lacks ANY of the presence of the man he’s ripping off of. Look, I know Palpatine is a hammy villian and can be over the top, but he still carried with him a presance that you could feel. For example, the scene where he appears in Return of the Jedi, he just has this feel of “Yeah, this guy could kick my ass”. This guIy, doesn’t. In fact, I am almost close to saying he lacks the personality of the other two villians. All he seems to want to is walk around and spout how powerful he is and how he is the ultimate thing on the planet.
No, Vince McMannon is the higher power, he is just a guy being played by Rob trying to get some scares and tryign to make us think that he is all that, but he isn’t. He isn’t even that threatening or powerful, just the guy who sits there with an extereme disconnect from the rest of the ‘Plot’.
Next time, I might discuss some of the themes about it
