From time to time, I will post a quick review of movies and books I either a) miraculously missed, or b) just discovered, and c) definitely think you should not miss. Or, sometimes, d) think you need to miss as hard as possible, because it is e) embarassingly mediocre or f) soul-scarringly, chew-your-own-nuts-off-to-escape awful. Obviously, this means spoilers.
Tonight's shitastrophic film is Mandrake (2010).
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| Source. For some reason, this insanely bad movie was quite hard to get photos for. |
Summary
All right. Well, I needed something to listen to while I edited a project, and what better than a craptacular movie? I will add the note that this means I was distracted while watching the film, so keep that in mind. That said, Mandrake is not exactly a terrifically rich film. I will grant Pandorum this much--it made the pretense of having layers (even though other bloggers disagreed, I still maintain that it was a fantastically stupid movie).
So, here's the plot--which you won't find on Wikipedia, because this film is that insignificant--some archaeologists go to a jungle in a fictional South-American country for...ph4t l00t, I guess--and there's a dagger they recover with a totally not plastic 30-carat ruby. Then the jungle comes to life and starts attacking them. No, I'm not skimming over the plot; that's really all there is to it.
The joy in this movie really comes from the effects and the atrocious acting. In the first scene--the mandatory 'some chick running through the woods' shot--we see an unconcerned actress stumbling around and even bum-scooting down a steep hill just before she gets offed in a jump cut. Shortly after, another victim from the camp site--which totally doesn't look like they just took the casting tents and pointed the cameras at them--we see a dude trip over and get pulled into the bushes. All it was missing was a funny horn-honk, and it would have been a classic pratfall from a cartoon. Add in Doctor Exposition, a blonde who is definitely a university researcher, and some disposible, interchangeable protags and baddies, and you have the perfect cast for this goofy 'jungle' jaunt. When I say 'jungle', I mean, 'probably filmed in Florida', of course. This is definitely not a rainforest.
The casting and writing are just what you'd expect. The female actresses, with no disrespect, look and act like they're trying to make a transition from the adult film industry; the baddies are bad, the good guys are blander than truck-stop diner rice pudding, and so on and so forth. Of course, if you're watching a film called 'Mandrake' (Mandrakes, by the way, don't grow in South America, as far as I know) with CGI vines that attack people and you expect Shakespearean writing, you will be in for a disappointment.
I do have to mention that there's a throwaway 'fuck the conquistadors' line, and then the movie goes into the standard somewhat racist paradigm where scary first-nations people abduct a bunch of whites. One of the characters actually yells, "you can't do this to me! I'm an American!" So, of course, a wag of the finger for the cheapness of that old trope. But, again, expecting intelligence from this movie is like expecting your dog to do calculus. It involves disparate abilities compared to the goal, and while it's cute, it's not very productive.
The biggest thing I noticed with this one is that the effects are truly something special. I'm no historian--though I will admit to a real fondness for the area--but the bloopers are obvious and blatant. Let's start with the conquistador, whose breastplate is rusted away and whose skull is perfectly white and intact. Perhaps we should touch on the fact that the movie couldn't be arsed to tell the difference between the indigenous tribespeople and the Aztec--we're shown an indigenous tribe and all the engravings, of course, are Aztec. Then there's the costume designs--I really laughed when I saw those. The indigenous people look like a Spirit Halloween store version of fairy barbarians. Of course, there was an Aztec map--even though Aztecs didn't use paper or cloth, and if it was from a Spanish conquistador, it would have been in Spanish, not just Aztec. I think one of the crowning moments was seeing a North American deer antler on the priest's staff.
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Source. Yeah., definitely a high production-value film |
Pros
It's been a while since I laughed this hard. Obviously, this movie wasn't supposed to be funny, but between characters' poorly-delivered lines, the beyond-terrible historical inaccuracies, it was just brilliant. I almost think they did this intentionally. Surely a movie this bad was never meant to be taken seriously. Right? Right? Also, there is plenty of room in the pacing for an in-living-room riff track, so this is perfect for a crappy movie night with friends. Hell, even alone, this moldy wonder is pretty entertaining.
Cons
If you don't like bad movies, you won't like this. Also, there were plenty of set-ups for tentacle porn, and not a single joke about it, which was actually quite disappointing. In fact, the movie studiously avoids laughs, in a way I can't help finding laudable--it's as though they knew their movie was laughable enough.
Normally, I would wag my finger at mildly sexualizing the death of female characters, but again, this movie is just such an underachiever that I can't bring myself to do it. So, again, if you're in the mood for something insightful and layered, this is not the movie for you.
Final Verdict
8 out of 10 for sheer goofiness. I docked a mark or two out of propriety, but the writing, the cast, the monster, and the whole shebang are just too delectably silly to miss. Fire this one up on Netflix and watch it with a few friends. Drink every time it looks like someone's about to be vine-raped, and every time a character spews pointless exposition. If you don't die, make sure to report back.
*****
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