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-
Posts
2 comments:
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).
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.
Post a Comment