Canon MST3K Review: Werewolf

Today was a strange day, which somewhat explains why I'm posting at 4:00 in the morning. It's also fitting that today was a strange day, because Werewolf is a strange movie. Quite frankly, Werewolf was 31 flavors of awful, featuring a plot that made little sense, a director with no clue, and actors as wooden as Hacksaw Jim Duggan's 2 x 4. All of this does make this movie very easy to mock, and the gang at Mystery Science Theater sure did a thorough job of mocking this schlock. Now, a few notes from the movie, Werewolf:

- This movie was made in 1996, making this the most recent film ever spoofed on MST3K. If you saw this film, you would think it was made in 1976, not '96.

- The director of this movie is a man by the name of Tony Zarindast. He directs with the touch of a man that has no idea what he is doing, as there are a lot of poor shots in this film. In one scene, the camera pans over a mural in a bar for what seems like a minute, for no good reason at all. Another shot is a still shot of a building, for 25 seconds. The building ended up being the setting for two minor scenes in the film, so why Mr. Zarindast spent so much time fixated on it is a mystery. Whoever mixed the sound in this movie did a poor job, as there are many parts where you can't hear the actors' lines over the music and there were a couple of times where all you could hear was mumbling, during what were supposed to be big scenes. Also, the score of this movie is just awful.

- The biggest star in the movie, if you can call him that, is Joe Estavez, better known as Martin Sheen's brother. He plays one of the archeologists. He's in the movie for about 5 minutes, shoots a werewolf, and is never heard from again.

- The movie has an interesting beginning, as three archeologists are digging, their boss Yuri comes over and yells at them to work harder. They don't really listen, but find something in the dirt. Yuri comes over, somebody trips over the thing, and all of a sudden a fight breaks out, as Yuri kicks everybody's ass. I don't know why everybody started fighting, but it did turn out to be one of the few decent scenes in the movie, so there's that.

- Yuri's the main villian in this movie, a power hungry archeologist who will stop at nothing to become famous for his work. He also has about eight different hair styles throughout the movie, changing color and form throughout the movie, which seems to take place in the timespan of four days. Every scene Yuri is in, his hair changes, and nobody knows why.

- Yuri's not the only problem, as the lead character is a writer named Paul, who the MST3K crew referred to as a "Rent-a-Center" Andy Garcia. That would be fine, except Paul shows no real emotion in the film unless he transforms into a werewolf. Paul became a werewolf after Yuri hit him with the skull of an ancient werewolf, because, as everyone knows, if someone hits you with the skull of an animal, you will become that animal when the moon is full.

- The worst actor in the movie is a woman by the name of Adrianna Miles, who plays an archeological assistant named Natalie. I am 600% sure that she slept with someone to get in this movie, because she has all of the acting talent of a can of beets. She can't pronounce werewolf correctly, which is a minor problem in a movie about werewolves. She also has a heavy European accent that goes in an out throughout the film, and usually reacts to events with a dumb look on her face and one word answers. The girl acts as if she "hardly knows what a hat is", yet she's supposed to be this super smart archeologist who's also a kick-ass pool player. The only thing I can complement her on is her big pair of, well, you know.

- For some reason, there's a character named Sam the Keeper, who watches over the house Paul rented. What he's a keeper of, I have no clue, but he carries a shotgun, has a Santa Claus beard, and acts as if he's been huffing paint for 10 years straight. In the movie, we find out that Sam just found out that Dracula's a f*g**t, and that we don't have to believe him but "that's the facts". How Sam came across this information is never mentioned, and is probably best left ignored. Naturally, when confronted by the werewolf, Sam is without his gun, and instead of calling the cops, he decides to pray for the police to show up. While I'm not questioning his religious beliefs, I do wonder why he didn't use the phone there.

- It's hard to pick a worst scene in this movie, but two of them really stand out. The first one is where Paul the werewolf is chasing after one young woman, and for some reason we hear three different women screaming. The second one takes place after Yuri injects a 60 year old security guard with werewolf blood for some reason. The guard transforms into a werewolf while driving. He seems to be driving ok, even though he passed the same gas station three times, when all of a sudden he randomly hits barrels of oil in a shot which was clearly out of sequence with the rest of the film, killing him instantly. While that's bad, it's still not worse than having three women screaming for one.

In conclusion, this movie is so bad that's its good. From the wooden acting to the poor directing to the bizarre soundtrack, this movie is just awful, but at least it's funny, if by accident. The MST3K crew come up with a lot of quality lines, which wasn't too hard for a movie that offered so much material. As a movie, I'd give it a one out of 10, but as an MST3K episode, I'll give it a 7.64 out of 10, as chances are that you will laugh a lot during this episode. Well, thanks for reading, and feel free to let me know of any ideas for future posts here at The Canon Review. Hopefully, you find this review absolutely fasicnating, like Natalie did.

Canon Movie Review: Rocky

Hey, the Oscars were on three hours ago. I didn't watch them, but I'm sure they were great. The Hurt Locker won best picture, I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it was at least a good movie. Since the Oscars were today, I decided to pick at random a previous Oscar winner for Best Picture. To my surprise, the choice was Rocky, which won the Oscar in 1976. Even though I've seen it twice already, I had no problem seeing it a third time. A few thoughts about this movie:

- To me, it's quite an upset that this movie won the Best Picture Oscar. Just look at the other nominations, there's Network, Taxi Driver, All the President's Men, and Bound For Glory. That's a tough crowd there. I've never seen Bound for Glory, but the rest are very, very good movies. Not only that, but Rocky was a less polished film than any of these movies, and didn't have a big name actor like Robert Redford or a big time director like Sidney Lumet and Martin Scorsese. That the Oscar went to a movie written by and starring a struggling actor (Stallone was not regarded as leading man material at all, and the studio wanted a bigger name actor in the movie instead of some bit actor), is kind of a shock.

- Stallone did such a great acting job in this film. In a review for the film when it was released, Roger Ebert compared him to a young Marlon Brando, that's how good Stallone was in Rocky. Today, he's kind of considered a joke, or at the very least a bad actor. But he really nailed this role, and he wrote the screenplay to boot, although the final product is a bit different from his original script.

- Paulie was a real jerk in this film. He kept bugging Rocky to ask his loan shark boss Gallo for a job, he treats his sister like crap, constantly berating her for no good reason. When Rocky has the nerve to question his motives to Adrian (Paulie's sister). Paulie goes all berserk, smashing his house up with a bat until finally Adrian tells him off for all of his crap. There was more than one occasion where I hoped Rocky would have knocked him on his ass.

- Come to think of it, Mickey (Rocky's eventual manager) was a jerk too, kicking Rocky out of his locker and generally ragging on Rocky. It's only when Rocky lands the fight with Apollo Creed that Mickey offers any sort of help to him at all. But I guess that's just human nature.

- Carl Weathers was perfect in his role as Apollo Creed, the overconfident champion who decides to give Rocky a title shot after his original opponent breaks his hand five weeks before the fight. He even managed to pull off that ridiculous ring entrance (where Creed dresses like George Washington in a boat tossing coins into the crowd) without making it seem too unbelievable.

- In my opinion, the song in the workout montage "Gonna Fly Now" is one of the greatest background songs in the history of cinema. If there was ever a song that fit the movie, that was it. Much better than "Eye of the Tiger" (from Rocky 3), which is kind of cheesy. If I ever have to fight and come out to entrance music (which will never happen) "Gonna Fly Now" will be the song I come out to. If that song doesn't get you pumped up, than nothing will.

- Overall, this movie is great, just great. This movie is a classic. Even though it had some fierce competition, it was a worthy choice for Best Picture (personally, I think Network is just a little better, but I digress). This was Stallone's best work, as he was able to convincingly portray Rocky Balboa and make the audience care and root for him in the movie. The direction was great, the supporting actors played their parts well, and the movie never drags. I would give this a 9.13596460 out of 10.

Well, thanks for reading, if you have any ideas for future reviews, or any feedback, or if you want to review something yourself for The Canon Review, then e-mail me at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Well, I'm gonna fly now.