Saturday, July 18, 2015

Best Defense (!984)

Best Defense (!984)
Damn, this is a really bad movie. I vaguely remember seeing it on VHS way back in the day. I only remembered the Eddie Murphy scenes and I thought the movie was just an Eddie Murphy. I just re-watched the movie and it doesn't hold up at all. 
The movie is segmented into two strange stories that almost have NOTHING to do with each other. The movie tells these two stories in such a haphazard manner that it is jarring to see this movie all the way through. None of the Eddie Murphy parts have an impact on the Moore parts or vice versa.
In the beginning, the movie was one thing and then the studio completely changed the nature of the movie by adding all the Eddie Murphy scenes. The studio knew the Moore version of the film was a steaming (streaming) pile of poop, so they drastically changed the movie in post-production. The problem is they didn't even try to make the added scenes/story make any sense to the nature of the main/original story.
From AV Club.com (year of flops), ((Better yet, why not throw a couple million dollars at Eddie Murphy for a few days work as a wisecracking tank commander? That way the stakes would be nothing less than the life or death of America's brightest and most popular comic actor. ))
Murphy and Moore never interact with each. You would think the studio would at least try to put together these two funny men, which were at the top of their games in the 80s.
-Dudley Moore Story: You can clearly tell this was the main story. It is kind of a spy movie where plans gets thrown into Moore's hands and “comedy” ensues. And, his storyline is expremely bad and not funny.
-Iraq's invasion of Kuwait : All of the Murphy scenes are set in Kuwait. Later in the movie, the Iraq army invades Kuwait. This happened way before the REAL invasion happened in the first Gulf War. I think it is interesting that this movie predicted that invasion six years before the real one. There's nothing else that amusing though.
-Sexism to the extreme: I am not Anita, but the sexism from Moore's character and his friends is really bad even for 80s standards. He blatantly wants to cheat on his wife with his female boss and even touches his boss ass in public and she's okay with it. I'm all for 80s boob humor, but the sex stuff here just feels uneasy.
-Kate Capshaw : Man, she is bad in this movie too. However, she does hum the Indiana Jones theme in one scene as a callback to her role in the Temple of Doom. Both movies came out in 84.
The movie is a complete mess and doesn't hold up at all. Not even the Murphy stuff is that funny.
Grade: D-

2 comments:

MC said...

Strangely enough, this movie is also sort of prescient when you look at the development and testing the the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which was going on at the same time this movie was filmed and released.

There is an HBO docudrama called the Pentagon Wars, starring Cary Elwes and Kelsey Grammer which recounts that story (and the whole thing is on Youtube).

Semaj said...

Yeah, I actually remember that movie from back in the day. It was a rather funny movie and this movie does remind me of that one. Kind of funny I just got done watching another tank movie.

 
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