Hello, everyone out there. It is time for another episode of Movie Mastery, a podcast where we watch the movies that you tell us to. And this time around, we are watching Megaforce. That's right. I, your intrepid host, John, has taken his sidekick, Jeff, and gone on a journey through the mystical jungles of Megaforce. Man, once the Joker beats me to death, I'm going to come back so mad. I'm going to be so angry and edgy. I'm going to wear so many leather jackets. I'm going to wear four leather jackets. I'm going to wear a leather jacket as pants. I'm going to pop the collar of every other leather jacket. Not all of them. That'd be crass.
I like the idea that you're going to pop the collar of every other leather jacket, just not the ones you're wearing. So you're going to go around to everyone else's leather jacket and be like, pop, pop. That looks like a Nightwing thing. I'm not a Nightwing. I'm the edgy one. Yeah, I'm a cool guy. I've got a red helmet. Oh, Red Hood. So we watched Megaforce. 1982's Megaforce, I think. Yeah, 1982's Megaforce came out the year that I was born. And boy, howdy, it's real bad.
No way, this was great. It is astounding how boring this is. I think the thing that really takes you, I mean, spoiler free chat, I think the thing that takes you the furthest afield when you're watching this is realizing that it is mostly a comedy that is like 90% borscht belt, like back and forth Laurel and Hardy routines between these ersatz G.I. Joe motherfuckers. It's so weird that they've decided they're like megaphores. And then they're like, oh, no, wait, just kidding. This is like a send up of those types of things. And they're like, oh, no, it isn't. We're going to spend another half of this movie basically just doing the world's.
Shittiest explosion effects in front of tanks. No, this movie by weight is 30% goes nowhere love story. And then literally the first third of the movie is goes nowhere love story. And then they're just like, ah, never mind. We didn't actually have any conclusion for that. So we'll just pass, hard pass. And then the middle third is humor in uniform, like Reader's Digest edition, now filmed. So it's a bunch of people being like, hey, what's a nine letter word for a guy who played an Indian chief? You know, then the back and forth on that kind of shit. And then the last third is exciting action conclusion, which I'm going to tell you by weight.
80% Estes Comanche rockets with D-cell fuel launchers. Yes. It is a thousand tiny toy rockets. Yes. You can see some of them go foul. Yes, you can. You see a bunch of these rockets go off. You're like, oh, cool, rockets. And then one goes all crazy because they didn't prime it right. One just starts going. You're like, oh, shit, that'd be super dangerous if it mattered. None of this matters, though. None of this matters. Oh, God. So I was slightly like, oh, maybe this will be okay to watch because.
Barry Bostwick was in it. Yeah. And I was like, I love that guy. And honestly, I love him in this, too. It's hard to hate Barry Bostwick when he's on screen. Yeah. I mean, the dude's got like a lion's mane in this. Oh, God. His facial hair goes right up to his regular hair. He is impressive. He is a golden god. But he's a 70s golden god, so. He's an early 80s golden god. He looks like he's a holdover from this. The whole thing feels like a holdover. There's a bunch of jokes about how this is the 80s now. Oh, yeah. I didn't look up the year before I had watched it, and I was like.
What, did this come out in like 87? Why is there such a, ah, it's not the 70s anymore. I'm like, no, it's like 82. This had to have been filmed like right on the edge. It's 82. That's still the 70s.
Yeah, man. Actually, I'm pretty sure that... Two years after is always still the same. Yeah, well, people usually say it's the music that makes a difference. Like, the 90s didn't start until Nevermind. Yeah. So 92, 93. But I think the 80s music just died in 1979 and then came back to life around 1982. And anything that happened in 80 and 81 is just passed. Blank on it. It doesn't count. Lost to the ages. Lost to the ages. You can go look it up if you want. All of it's going to be weird and disappointing. Just like us. Yep. It's a lot of, like, bad sticks. Yeah. So I gotta say, the no-spoiler review for this is, it's...
Real boring. It's stupid. I mean, there's some charm to it, but not enough. There's just too much watching vehicles go places. This is very much a watch the five-minute highlight reel kind of a thing. Yeah, no. As much as they wanted to have action stuff, there just wasn't anything, and they wanted to have comedy, but there weren't really any jokes that landed. It was just a sad time. This film...
caused an 11-year gap in Barry Bostwick being in movies. Really? Yes. After this, he did not appear in another movie until Weekend at Bernie's 2, 11 years later. Was he on a TV show that whole time or something? Oh, he did, like, TV movies. I was on TV shows, but he did not do a theatrical release. Because the dude was always a hybrid actor. Like, he spent so much time on Spin City.
Yeah. I know it's way later, but it always made it clear to me that he was comfortable doing TV work. Well, I mean, the reason they actually got him in this is the director saw him on a stage production of the Pirates of Penzance and went, that guy. I want that guy. I mean, if I saw Barry Bostwick in the Pirates of Penzance production in the early 80s, I would have been like, I want that guy. Yeah. I mean, I don't blame you. No shade. All right. You know what? Fuck it. Let's play some music. Let's light the lights. It's time to get things started.
And we will come back with the spoilerific review of Megaforce tonight. All right, we're back, and it's time. It's time to talk to you, the listener, about Megaforce. First of all, how you doing? First of all, I'm great. Good. That's all I need. This isn't my show. I don't get to do that. Second of all.
How are you doing? I'm fine. Thank you for asking. Good. I'd hate it if I was doing good and you weren't. Yeah, that's a rare event. Yeah. Normally I'm doing shitty. Yeah. You love it. Like, well, I mean, right now I am two days removed from watching this because someone called in sick, which means I've got the haziest of memories of this. Oh, that's fine. Honestly, while watching it the other night, I was like, oh man, I'm going to have a hazy memory of this. This is garbage. So, I mean, okay. So we get that the movie opens with a extremely post-processed.
series of images of the army driving around and you can tell it's just scenes from the movie that all they did was apply so much kind of contrast filter to it that it just turns into weird black and white shapes and then there's just a voiceover explaining G.I. Joe but it's not called G.I. Joe yeah we get a little like opening text thing that's like ah in the future nations have come together to create A weird army that can do anything they want and can't get in trouble. It's Megaforce. And they get all the best technology. And each country is committed to sending its very best men to Megaforce. Top men. Every one of them. They're all the highest trained men. And then they get the coolest equipment. And they never use it. They just use dirt bikes and dune buggies. But boy, oh boy, do we send them expensive shit anyway. Yeah, well.
This movie is 95% dirt bikes and dude buggies. Oh, yeah. I was like, you know, there's a point where we see, like, a hangar. Full of airplanes. Full of real airplanes. There's a MiG-27. Honest to God shit. They're like, that's a MiG-27. Those are top secret right now. And they're like, yeah, not for us. Russia sends us their top secret airplanes so we can not use them. So that, you know, on our super secret special assignments, we can go, eh. I don't think I've ever seen a movie that feels like it sat on the shelf through its decade into the wrong decade. More than this. Because this movie is, like I said, 95%.
Just watching endless streams of dirt bikes go by on a flat California scrubland plane somewhere. Yes, indeed. Which is the definition of shitty 70s movies. Oh, yeah. I mean, when I said that this movie was so much just watching vehicles go places, I'm like, that's so 70s. They're like, ah, the hero is going to go meet the villain. This requires five minutes of watching his Buick on highways. Yeah. Part of me thought that, like...
The movie was made in the 70s, because it's probably 1982, but I would have sworn to you it was made in the 70s and just set in the 80s because it's the far future or whatever. In the far future of 1982. Yeah, but it's not. It's movie was both made in the 80s and talking about how the 80s is kind of the future. It's a weird choice, like if the 80s just lasted 30 years. Like, I do understand the kind of back and forth between our hero, Barry Bostwick, as Ace Hunter, and our main villain, Guerrera, who is friends with him. Yeah, they're just buddies. They've served together in the past. Yeah, and...
There's a point where they start talking about the whole like, oh, you know, it's not the 70s anymore. Idealism costs too much now. And I was like, okay, that's a fun little back and forth. Though I feel like that would have been better served later in the 80s when you got more of the like, you know, the greed is good type shit happening. Yeah, yeah. But this is set in sort of the death yells of the 70s where you can still be famous even though you've got a giant beard. And all you do is ride a dirt bike around and hang out in skin tight clothes with other dudes in the same outfit as you. Goddamn. I got to tell you, the fact that the Megaforce outfit is just like a spandex onesie.
And I'm like, guys. They keep calling it out in the movie. It's the weirdest thing. It's like it's a send-up of itself. There's points in the movie where people are like, I like your dumb, super tight uniforms. They're like, thanks. Hey, thank you. I see you've got a harness like Darth Vader's chest box. It's got a bunch of blinky buttons on it that you never interact with and don't seem to do anything. What's that about? I don't know. High-tech future shit. Don't ask questions. Hal? Hal, can you explain this? Well, I can explain it. There was no costume designer for this movie. And instead, it was designed by Mattel. That makes sense. Yep. So now you know why they look like G.I. Joes. And when I say Hal, what I mean is that this movie was directed by Hal Needham.
Yes. And that Hal Needham routinely appears throughout the film. He plays a guy who is in a big room full of buttons. It looks like he's in the Wonkivator. And you never know where he is in relation to anything that's going on. It's just every once in a while, cuts to Hal Needham in his Wonkivator room, pushing all the buttons on the walls of the ceiling and shit, and be like, let's see how they like a taste of this one, Ace. Beep, beep, boopity, beep, beep, boop. And then they'll just cut back to Ace, who's like, thanks, techie. And you know what the weird thing is? Yeah. For all of the movie with him just being in his little Wonkivator. Yeah.
he managed to break several ribs falling off one of those dirt bikes. Why was he ever on one? Who knows? I assume he was just like, well, I want to drive around on a dirt bike for a while. Oh no. And then he's like, wait a minute. I don't know how to do this. I'm not a stunt man. No, I love him in this movie, but honestly, every time he popped up in his little, uh, Wonka Vader to push buttons, my first thought was, holy shit, Adam West is in this. And then he'd be like, oh no, wait, that's Hal Needham. Oh man. Nice call. You're right. I wasn't doing that, but now that I think about it, yes. Anyway. Yeah. After that introduction, uh, we cut to the.
very weirdly inserted love interest, Zara, as played by Star Trek The Motion Picture's Persis Combata. Yeah. Ooh, she was in Star Trek The Motion Picture and then parlayed that into a career of being in shit like this. It's, the beginning of this is one of the more confusing things because they cut from the like, the weird black and white silhouette thing and the discussion of how Megaforce exists to some tanks, and they're shooting at a thing, and some guy's like, this is for the Glorious Revolution. I'm like, oh, we're fighting Russia in this. This is one of those Cold War things. Yeah. No, okay. No, we're not. And we're gonna make up countries to be in. Yeah, they're in like Bundara or something. It was not a real country. They got real close to Gambia, and in fact, fucked up at one point and said Gambian, because they're supposed to be in Gamibia, is the actual country that they say several times. But at one point, one of the people goes, the Gambian army is wherever. And I'm like, oh, you fucked up and said a real place.
Oh, we're the Democratic Republic of the Cameroon. Yeah, don't worry about it. It's a real country. It is amazing to me how often they're like, ah, yes, and then he watched his country, Santa Cristo, get destroyed. You're like, what? Well, the problem was that they had that super prison there, and then Bane got out. But no, it's funny that the movie is potentially set in, like, West Africa or East Africa, and yet all of the villains are...
Mexican stereotypes or South American stereotypes. It's so weird because Guerrera is very clearly Latino in some way. Yes. And then you have the person that he's, he's a mercenary. Yeah. Working for.
Someone else who very clearly is some kind of communist stand-in. Yeah. But his second-in-command is this bumbly dude who's also got a Mexican-type accent. And then they're crossing the border and doing raids into some other country where Zara is, but then also their military is being coordinated by a British guy. Yes. And I'm just like, I have no idea where this is supposed to be. And part of me is like, am I supposed to be this confused? I don't think you're supposed to care. I think you're supposed to be like, ah, they're not supposed to cross borders. Great, got it. Up to speed. Move along. Let's see the cool vehicles. Oh, yeah. I mean...
It is supposed to be very G.I. Joe of like, oh no, they've gone into country and we need to stop them. Yeah, just use the Justice League, like the DCAU thing of just making up countries whenever you need to. Yeah. They're in Churchlia. It's fine. Oh, Chechnya. Oh, Chechnya. My made up country that I try to convince people is real. It's right on the border of Finland and Mexico. Now, the beginning of this has them like...
blow up some factory somewhere? Yeah, the bad guys blow up a factory, right? Yeah, the bad guys blow up a factory, and I believe that's what causes Zara to make her way along with his British general out to see Megaforce. Because she's like the daughter of the crown king of that. The president of whatever country they are raiding, but they try to chase after him and they're very close, but then they manage to get back over the border, and Zara's like, no, we can't go over into that country or else we'll start an actual war. But I can't imagine that having some force come over and blow up your shit and then run over there wouldn't start one anyway. Well, my guess is that her country can't...
can't reasonably expect to win that war. That's the only thing that matters because if these guys can come over and blow up their factories and run away and it doesn't result in the president of her country being like, all right, fuck this. We're either extradite them or invading and getting them. Yes. It's because he knows that they are trying to get him to pick a war because he'll lose. That's the best I can come up with. Okay. But anyway, Zara and this general, general British man. Yeah. General white something. Yeah. General white guy. General white guy. They are flying off to meet with Megaforce and Zara is military. She's in her own country's military.
And as a result, that means that she thinks she's like way into knowing that she knows all these soldiers and so on. But when they land, they land and are dropped off by a truck in the middle of the desert. And then she sits down because she's like, whatever, I'm military. I'm used to sit in the desert. It's fine. This is my home country anyway. I'll be OK. But the generals wander around. How dare they? How dare they leave me to the elements like this? This is unconscionable. I mean, this isn't her home country. They're at Megaforce base. OK, yeah.
But she's just fine and comfortable. And for some reason, there's like a rattlesnake that they keep. I think it's because the good member of Megaforce who's about to come pick them up is, in a great introduction to the members of Megaforce, a weird cartoon stereotype. He's a cowboy. Yeah, he's a cowboy man. He's a cowboy named Dallas, and he comes up and shoots a snake and is like, whoo, them sidewiners will sneak up on you. No sense of justice on them. And you're like, what the fuck just happened? And then the military of each country stands its best and brightest, ma'am. And our best and brightest happen to be a rootin' tootin' cowpoke. Why, I'd rope a tornado for free, but for an extra dollar, you can throw in a panther.
And of course, Dallas is like the number two here. Yes. He's going to be in most of the scenes and is our Barry Bostwick's like number two in command. And also, fun fact, because this is an like international thing and everyone has their same like diarrhea brown jumpsuit on, but with a patch of the country they get sent from. So you've got like, oh, here's a guy with like a Mexican flag and a Japanese flag and so on.
Fucking Dallas has a Confederate flag on his shoulder, and he can eat my entire asshole. Not only does he have a Confederate flag on his fucking shoulder, but also in the climactic scene of the movie where they ride out to do battle and do glory, he ties a stupid little Confederate flag to his dirt bike. Yeah. There's nothing like rooting for the guy on the dirt bike with the Confederate loser flag. Yeah. God damn it. And it's not like, oh, well, because of the United States, like, maybe he put that on there because whatever state you're... No. Fucking Hunter has a U.S. flag. We see several other people with a U.S. flag. The guy driving the Jeep with Dallas in it is an American black man. Yep.
And his stereotype is that he's the smart guy. He's a smart black guy. Yeah, he listens to Vivaldi and no Shakespeare. I like the part where the British guy keeps underestimating the driver. Oh, what are you listening to? Gladys Knight and the Pips? No, I'm listening to Vivaldi. Winter! No, no, no, Spring. I'm listening to Spring. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why is Winter the denigrating choice anyway? Spring's the well-known one.
And then, like, later on, when they have to leave and he does a quote for Macbeth, he's like, oh, is that Shakespeare? And he's like, yeah, it's Macbeth, this scene, this act. Like, yeah. My dude, his whole deal is that he is cultured and well-read. But, you know, don't get it down. He has nothing to do. Oh, no one has anything. The only ones, it's weird, this movie, I'll say this now, this movie feels like they...
Like the culmination of a show that existed or something. Because there's all these characters who come ringing and they're like, I'm Sixkiller. I'm the Native American one. Why do you have a cool name? What's your deal? What do you do? Nothing. Oh, nothing. You'll never see me. I'm in the background of several shots and then that's it. Yeah. Oh, okay. Who are you? I'm Suki. I'm the Japanese one and I'm a cool guy. What do you do? I don't know. I'm here. Yeah, there's a bit with Suki where I think he like, does he try too hard? I forget. He has a bit that they reference it twice in the movie. There goes Suki again doing whatever that Suki thing is. Oh, he's like.
At one point, he lost his bike, and so he was riding on top of one of the dune buggies, and they were like, Suki, goddammit, quit fucking around. That's what it was, yeah. But yeah, that's pretty much everyone in here will get like, ah, here's a dude with a Mexican flag. He will say hello and then immediately disappear. Yeah, it's funny because it's like every country is sending their best and brightest, but there's like two people that aren't American. The best and brightest is so American that they actually have to give one of them a Cherokee flag and another one a Confederate flag.
God, so angry. Yeah, it's not great. But yeah, Dallas, yeah, Dallas picks him up. Dallas, this is a lad. But Dallas picks him up and he's like, oh, I'm sorry about you having to get that, see that snake or whatever, but you were never in any danger because watch this. Hey, guy who's driving, I think it's Gabe or something like that. Hey, Gabe, turn on the doohickey and Gabe turns on a shitty TV screen in the middle of the desert that's got like a bikini girl in the surface. So they have holograms. Part of their like super high tech is not only do they have, you know, blue lasers. Yes. But also they have the ability to project.
anything as a hologram wherever. Yes. So one of the favorite ones is some woman in the surf, like walking around in a bikini. Yep. And they use it every time they do anything hologram related in the movie. But it's amazing to me that they're like, all right, here's a like TV realistic hologram showing this. We also use it to make a complete convincing, realistic looking rock over here. Yeah. Also a cartoon if we want to. We can just play a cartoon. There's that cartoon pig at one point when they decide to parody the Porky Pig ending some Warner Brothers stuff.
I don't know. But yeah, twice in the movie, they're like, I don't know, put the bikini lady in the desert again. There she is. I am so confused by this, says like the second in command. I see nothing, general.
They get driven by Dallas and I think Zach maybe is the other guy? I don't know. The cultured dude. And they both go in and they're like, oh, wait, it is because he's Zachary Taylor. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Named after a president. And there's a point where the British general's like, a cowboy named Dallas and a man named Zachary Taylor? Are we meant to take this serious? Wasn't that one of the presidents? Like, no, you're not meant to take this seriously. Wait till you meet Ace Hunter. He's the guy in charge. Yeah. And you meet Ace Hunter as they drive up towards...
the base of operations. Oh yeah, a little Six Flags stunt show happens. Yeah, you get a little stunt show. It's three dudes on dirt bikes going like, yeah, we're going to jump over rocks and stuff. Yeah. And then shoot bottle rockets at bowling balls or whatever. Yeah, like a bunch of bowling balls come flying up over the hills and they shoot them down with random bottle rockets. It is amazing to me. It's astonishing. And then for some reason, this little display like offends.
The general in Persis Combata, they're like, what is this? What is the meaning of all this? This is such brooch of behavior. They're like, no, we're not even putting on a show for you. That's just our regular training routine. Everyone has to do it. Also, the fact that they're like, how dare you make us wait in the desert while you dick around and shoot bowling balls here? And he's like, hey, man, we sent someone to get you. This is just training. I don't know what you want from me. But anyway, hi, I'm Ace Hunter. I see you brought a sexy lady with you, so let me just get real close to her and stay there. It's going to get real uncomfortable real soon. Yeah, and then she's going to be like, you suck. And he's going to go, all right, well, fuck you then.
I'm going to not like you until I like you again in five minutes. Yeah, because she has some immediate insult for him or something. But then he takes them on a little tour of their facility where, sure enough, they have a bunch of high-tech future crap. And she's like, how do you have all this? What does it cost? And Dallas is like, eh, it costs. It don't cost nothing. They back up a truck to our building once a year and just dump top-secret expensive shit on us. We got 10,000 square miles underneath the earth and why we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on mops alone last year to try and keep it clean. Yeah, it's just that kind of shit. Which, again, this whole big army base full of technology, dirt bikes and tune buggies. Oh, yeah.
And let me give you a tour here. Now, if you'll just come with me, we're going to go around the side of this painting. And then, oh, hey, now we're in a garage. Yeah. And we get revealed to their other big, besides the blue lasers, their other big secret weapon, which is a photo sensitive paint that their dune buggies at night are black dune buggies. And by day have like sub power wheels, white. They look like huffy bikes in terms of the paint jobs. I mean, it's.
It's very standard 80s dirt bike. Yeah. That someone has put a big dumb shield on the front of it and then painted everything like brown and yellow lightning bolts. Yeah. Just brown and like sort of a light beige-ish yellow. Yeah. And it just looks ugly. And I'm like, okay, but what is the photosensitive thing for? Like, what does it matter? Well, you see at night they turn black because there's no light on them. Okay. But they would appear black anyway because there's no light on them. Yeah. But it's super high tech. Don't worry about it. But if someone shines a light on it very slowly, it'll stop being black and start being real. It'll stop being black and start integrating in America. Damn it, Dallas.
Hey, I like to fly the flag of losers. I don't know what to tell you. I'm the rootinest, tootinest, racist cowboy of these here deserts. Look, I love a good flag of a loser, and that's why I joined Megaforce. We have a bit where Ace Hunter explains that, you know, they're like, how do you have the manpower? And he's like, well, the manpower is that every country sends in these guys. But because we're so super top secret, it's a volunteer only program. And we tell everybody back at home that we're dead. You're either dead or captured, which is weird because all of the jokes in this movie, 90%, at least of the jokes in this movie are, hey, don't forget to call my girlfriend back home. I will be calling your girlfriend when I get back home. You won't be. I will be. You guys can't have girlfriends. You're dead. I don't know why you keep saying that joke. The very first thing you told me is that the country disavowed knowledge of you and you're dead and you stay here all the time. How do you all have a girl back home?
I got to get out of here. Hey, do you mind if I call your girl? Sure, everyone else does. I do at least like that one of the pilots was Canadian. I saw the Canadian flag on him. I was like, oh, good. There's one more country. So we get a quick rundown of the kind of stuff they have and what it is they do. There's a scene where we see that they have bugged every military base in the entire world. And they have an automatic translation system that is very stilted and silly sounding. And they can use it to listen to every single military person anywhere forever.
Yeah. They can pick up any transmission anywhere ever, any phone call, any radio, whatever is going on, and they store it all in their giant mega computer. Yeah. We are also introduced to Egg, the chief scientist for Megaforce. Out of all the young soldiers in skin-tight garb, he is an elderly bald man in a scientist coat. He's a scientist man. See, he's Egg because he's the egghead. Do you get it? Do you get it about him? Also, he's from Eggsylvania. He's got an egg on his coat. Eggsylvania!
It's right next to Judge Nia. It's just a quick two-hour drive. Yeah. And his whole deal is that he's a scientist, so he's forgetful and a little goofy. Yeah. And...
He's mostly here to set up that there is going to be a MacGuffin at the end of the film because he's like, hey, Ace, I got that thing you wanted. And just remember, it's one, two, and then the thing I put in your bike will work, okay? We're not going to say what it is, but the thing in your bike, and you hit buttons one and two, and then at the end of the film, all right, I'm going now. Okay, goodbye. And then they send a...
Persis Kampata off to change which thankfully she does off screen thank goodness she's in some military dress uniform when she gets a knock on the door obviously it's Ace here to hit on her he is dressed like he has to go play like the Prince of the Nutcrackers at a restaurant That is the dress uniform for these soldiers is when they're not in their ridiculous garbage spandex outfit, they are instead wearing a blue and red absolute, like, looks like someone trying to be futuristic, I think, suit. They all look like they're the Prince of Candy Town. Pretty much. So he shows up in the Crown Prince of Candyland and he's like, hello, may I escort you to dinner? And the fact that she doesn't just laugh at him, like, look, I'm in a military uniform. What are you wearing? Oh, this is our military uniform. Oh, my God.
Okay, I would like to leave now. It was bad enough when I thought that was just what Barry Bostwick was wearing, and I was like, bold choice. Let's see if it works for you. But then they get to the mess hall and everyone is in that outfit. You're like, oh no, a dance sequence is coming. Oh God, oh no.
They're going to do some sugar plum fairy bullshit. So this at the dinner is when we finally get the introduction of what the fuck is going on, what they want them for, what the deal is. And it's that the British general is like, all right, here's what we need you to do. We need you guys to pull a commando raid into this country. No one's allowed to go into, but you're so stealthy and so good that you can do it and get away with it. Plus you're not, you know, officially part of anyone's like army or whatever. So if you go do it, then you can like.
be disavowed. Yes. So that's what's gonna, we just need you to, it's only a couple minutes across the border, you gotta go in there, raise a ruckus in their military camp, and then escape under cover of night, and they need to chase you. You need to lure them across the border so we can get them on our side of the border. Yeah, because once they're over on our side, then we can grab them, and then we'll have them, and then the other country can't be like, we're harboring them anymore. So that's what we need. We need a win, we need a W, and we need you to give it to us. And so we get a little bit of the planning session where Hunter, Barry Boswick, is like, okay, we're going to do the whole thing in four minutes. We're going to drive over there and cover up night, shoot a bunch of rockets and shit, raise some hootenanny hell, and then run away and they'll chase us. It's going to be very precision. They have two different columns of armor. We're going to go in during night, blow one of them up in their entire base, and then have the other column follow us, and then you can get them. Yes, and that'll work. I mean, granted, the fact that we blew up a bunch of shit on their side will definitely be existing evidence that we did that. It might be better for us to go up there and not blow stuff up and have both armor columns chase us, but...
You know, whatever. Who gives a shit? G.I. Joe. Woo! Blue lasers! Megaforce!
And that is their plan. And of course, at this point, Zarya is like, ah, I will also accompany you on this mission. And Basuk's like, no. No, you're like, what? No. And she's like, but I'm a soldier. And I want to be like, yeah, lots of people are soldiers. We don't bring all of them with us all the time. I'm not even bringing all my own guys. Yeah. Look, I'm bringing 60 of my dudes, okay? Yeah. These 60 that work as a unit. And she's like, give me one good reason I shouldn't accompany you. And he's like, I don't know, because you're from another military, that you're not part of our whole weird disavowed unit thing. You don't need cohesion or training with my guys. You've never seen any of this equipment before. And she's like, is it because I am a woman? Oh, yeah. I love that he's like.
all right, you know what? I assume that you're just trying to do this because you're invested in your country's dumb nonsense. But all right, I'm going to give you an out and be like, oh, well, if you can pass my trials three, then you may join us. And so they do like a parachuting thing that takes too goddamn long. Yeah, the parachuting thing is just a romance scene. It's shot as a romance scene. It's 100% romance. But I think it was supposed to be that he thought that she gets scared of parachuting. I think he assumes that she's like, oh, you're in charge of military stuff because you're the president's daughter, not because you're a soldier. Yeah.
But she's like, no, I'm a real soldier. I actually served in combat and stuff. So when he's got her up on the plane, he's like, okay, you don't have to do this. And she's like, jumps out of the plane. It's like, if you get scared, I can jump with you. And if you freeze up, I'll pull the cord for you. And she's already out of the plane. So he's like exchanging looks with Dallas, like, oh, geez, she's one of those. A competent one. Ah, crap. And, you know, they go through a bunch of like.
training and they do like a VR fucking tank driving simulator. Yeah. And she's like, there you go. A perfect score. Now you have to take me. He's like, all right, I've let this go on too long. You can't come with me because you're not one of the 60. These men have trained together and gone on missions together so much that they know exactly what the other person will do. You, however, are an unknown and you could fuck everything up because you'll make them nervous and they don't know what you'll do. That said, I am willing to throw you a shot. But if you want to bone down, then we can go ahead and do that. Yeah.
But yeah, it's just embarrassing because he spends so much time. We're talking like 20 minutes of this movie. It's him like letting her skydive, having her do boot camp, running around in the desert stuff, having her do a VR tank driving simulation. She does perfect at all of it. Then she's like, fine, now you can no longer say I'm not qualified to go. And he's like, okay, all right, I let this play out too long. I'm sorry, this is on me. We decided to do it as a goof to let you train because we assumed that obviously you would fail at all of our trainings, but you didn't. And that's on me. I shouldn't have underestimated. This is just that scene where Hank tries to join OSI. Yeah. Except that it ends with, I mean, it's the same thing. They don't let him in either, even though he just perfected everything. Yeah, they're just like, no, you're not allowed to come with.
We never should have entertained this notion. I'm sorry. We should have at the very beginning been like, no, you can't because I don't care if you're a soldier. You're a soldier from a different military. Yeah. Also, the entire reason you came to Megaforce was that we aren't associated with any one given military. If you are with us, that makes it very clearly a sanctioned by your government raid. You may have noticed that that British general that flew you here has not been offering to join the team as well. Yeah. He's not like, ah, I should go as well. Sniff up a lip. Ha ha! I've got a thick reserve of pluck. Oh no, I've got to go to the bathroom and get rid of this thick reserve of pluck.
Someone come in here and pluck my thick eight. No. Oh, very well. I shall do it myself for queen and country. And at that point, this entire love story that they like started doing, we're like, oh, they start off kind of rough and tumble where they have a meeting where they get on each other's nerves and then they skydive and kind of like dance with each other for way too goddamn long in the air. So long. This is a movie that is entirely trying to sell you on the notion that dirt bike footage and one shot of professional skydivers is like a spectacle to behold. And this movie came out a year after Empire Strikes Back.
And as soon as this ends, they're like, okay, well, maybe we won't. have you go on the mission with us, but how about I take you on a date in London? And she's like, all right, great. Anyway, I'm out of this movie now. It's been a third of this movie, and now I will be gone. Good day, sir. I also like that he's like, tomorrow, we're going to meet tomorrow in London at the Lion's Head Inn. And there's no point where they're like, well, okay, but where are we? Like, what the fuck country is this that we're one C-130 flight away from London? Well, you see, we're somewhere in the northern, eastern, western Africa, Europe. We're just in the desert part of England. Look, we're in the desert. We're a half hour from London.
We're in the great deserts of Essex! We're that part of the United Kingdom that's Brunga, or whatever we call the country. And they take off, and now we get a little bit of business of them trying to make you give a shit about any of the side characters, and it does not work, because none of them have a shtick that matters in the way that is funny or interesting. I would also say the fact that since every single one of them is dressed like a guy who's a G.I. Joe but about to strip...
I mean, because everyone, they're wearing fucking spandex jumpsuits. You see so many packages in this movie. True. So much suspended upward dong. You get tired of it after a while. I need some downward facing dong. Yeah, I want a couple of downward packages and every single one of them tucked up. Uh, dancer's belts, my lads. Yeah. Dancer's belts. Well, they didn't have the budget. They didn't have a costume board to be like, you guys should get some cups or dancer's belts or something. As it stands, I can see all your veiny dicks.
Also, it doesn't help that those uniforms are skin-colored for a lot of you. It is very Macavity and cats. Oof. I don't know whether to be turned on or no, I'm very definitely not. I am completely horrified by what I see, and it is time to go. But to move past the veiny dicks business, what I meant to get at is that they're all wearing a suit. Hi, I'm veiny dick, and welcome to my business. Everyone's got a wallet, but can your wallet do this?
Here at Fainty Dicks, we'll give you the business. But what I meant to get to is that they're all wearing the same outfit and they all have the same feathered 70s hair. So outside of Ace Hunter, who is a lion, every single one of them is identical. Oh, yeah. Except for the ones who are different ethnicities. But they don't try to build them up at all. No. There's never a bit of Suki business. There's like, oh, I'm doing a crossword. Oh, is that going to be your thing? No, it'll never be mentioned past this. All right, great. That's just a joke. That's the slowest setup in Punchline. That is a shaggy dog joke in a fucking movie where they're on their way to the drop zone for the first big raid on that tank column. And one of them's like, hey, I'm doing a crossword. What's a nine-letter word for an actor who played a native chief? And the guy responds with, Brando? And the first guy's like, Brando? B-R-A-N-D-O.
No, that's only six letters. I need nine letters. Oh, I just thought of it. Lancaster. Oh, okay. And who did he play as they jump out of the plane? Do you get it? Do you get what Chiefie played? Burt Lancaster played Geronimo. Do you get it? So they said Geronimo when they jumped out of the plane. Do you? Do you get it? God, this movie. It's amazing to me that they decided to go this shaggy with it. Yeah. Because, I mean...
They definitely were like trying to do something. It's just they didn't amp up the comedy enough to make it a comedy film. The action isn't good enough to make it an action film. No, and the romance is over already. And the romance is done. She's off sides until the very end of the movie and then you'll just see her waving. Yeah, but they parachute.
buggies and motorcycles into the desert, and we have to watch the entire four minutes, because there is a four-minute countdown clock of them driving around this base. That's right. They actually put a countdown clock on screen. Yeah. Lasers and rockets and guns and whatnot blow up a base, and it takes four minutes of them driving around while pyrotechnics from Six Flags go off. Yeah, and electronic-style music plays, according to my subtitles. But I didn't even notice electronic music, because if you were wondering if this army can go anywhere without constantly whooping, worry no longer. They are constantly hooting.
Oh, you got it. Every time the bikes go by, they're not just like, well, we can make do with bike and rocket noises, that's fine. Let's pipe in a bunch of, yee-hoo! Woo-hoo! Yee-ho! Oh, that's another good one! Just that kind of shit. Yeah. And indeed, they blow everything up. They lose one dune buggy and two motorcycles, and that's it. Everyone makes it out, though. Yeah. Oh, and everything that they have has self-destruct features, so no one manages to capture any of their top secret dune buggies. Yes. They're advanced beyond the rest of the world in...
dune buggy technology. Well, that dune buggy has directed energy weapon on it, so, you know. That part's important, yeah, they definitely gotta make sure that laser goes away. Right around here, there is a scene, I believe it's after this, when soldiers are trying to, like, raid their own camp back or whatever, there is a scene where a couple of enemy soldiers are sneaking up on a piece of, like, megaforce technology. Well, they're sneaking up on the Wonka Vader that Hal's in. Yeah, I think so. We're never sure because we never see a shot that establishes that he is in a vehicle that's anywhere near anyone else. As far as we know, he might be in, like...
Kentucky or something, in a little garage box. He never leaves that thing. Yeah, well, we never see him get out, but I feel like the back and forth here is supposed to establish that he's the one that's in the actual vehicle. Because you've got dune buggies, you've got motorcycles, and one little, like, ABC kind of... It looks exactly like a Cobra hiss tank. Pretty much. If you remember your G.I. Joe, you remember the hiss tank, it's one of those. Except it has wheels, because they couldn't afford the treads. Yes. And I think that's what he is doing his base of operations out of. Yes. But you don't...
ever find out. But, like, there's these three dudes who are sneaking up on it or something, and he's like, oh, time to deploy this one weapon I have. And it vibrates them out of existence. They couldn't think of another special effect, so he just has a little radar dish whirl around, and then the screen shakes on these three guys, and then they're gone. Yeah. It shoots a laser that vaporizes only them and nothing else. And they never use anything like that ever again. They shoot lasers. Yeah, they have lasers, and they set up, the guys that get vaporized set up an entire, like, oh, we're gonna shoot a mortar bazooka, whatever, at this truck. So, they have an entire thing set up.
So it can't be super high heat because that would have blown up the explosive that we watched them load. Yeah. And it just sort of goes, boop. And I guess it just kills people and their clothes because it doesn't burn any of the plants that are also around. No, it just vibrates them out of existence. It sends them to the other side or something. Yeah, they get sent to the phantom zone. Yeah, they go to the underground. This motherfucker's about to send them to the shadow zone. But he's just like, that's good. We did it. And he's just like, dude, you just like.
Erased three people. Did you just, like, burn them out of existence? Did they stop existing before you even hit them? Did that gun shoot back into time and kill them as babies? What was that? Did they erase everything that they had done to this moment? That was very powerful. You should use that again. Nah. What happens if you shoot that against the tank? Who knows? We're not going to try it. I mean, probably erase the guys in the tank. Good. That would be a good thing to use. They never use anything like it again, and it's the most you ever see of Hal Needham's techie character. Yeah, well. Anyway.
They raid the camp just fine, and it mostly works, except that Guerrero doesn't really take the bait. He chases them a little while, but then when he realizes what's happening, he calls off his troops and instead sends one guy on a motorcycle sidecar to go see where the hell all these dudes came from and where they're going. Now, the reason for this is, he gets some information, and we cut over to Zara and Burnwhite, is the name of the British guy, that also gets some information, which is... that apparently the place that they just raided was like, yeah, if these guys cross over the border into your country, we're going to go to war with you. Yeah. Like, if you allow this force that just raided us to go over your border, then it's on. The fact that we allow this force to go over your border and raid your shit, inconsequential. Well, I mean, that's, you know, that country's being a bully. That's how bullies operate. They're like, yeah, we're allowed to punch you. You're not allowed to punch us. Yeah. So they're just like, yeah. So the thing they had where they were like, oh, we'll get this armor column to chase us. They're like, no, you can't leave the border now. Yeah. So that causes the general...
Well, okay, the chain of events is as follows. First, the bumbling second-in-command man gets all the way out to where the Megaforce base of operations is, in some no-man's land country. We're not really sure where they are. I think they're in the bad guy country. Yeah, they're still, because they can't cross the border. They can't leave. So the bumbling number two of the bad guy army comes up on a motorbike, gets on the phone, and is like, General, I see them. There's a bunch of men out here, and they have a weird tent thing. And the general's like, what else do you see, you fucking idiot? And he, like, looks again through the thing, and by this point, he's been spotted by Megaforce, and they put up that hologram of the beach lady. Yeah. Just next to their, it's not even in front of them, it's just next to their camp. They're like, oh, he'll
You have guns. Just blow him up. You already blew up a bunch of people. Just blow this guy up. Who cares? Yeah. What are you going to get in trouble if you blow one more guy up? And they don't even try to use the beach lady to camouflage their own building or anything. It's smaller than their buildings and they put it off to the side of them. Yes. It's just the silliest thing. And then he looks up through the binoculars again and he gets called by the general and the general's a guerrera who's like, and what do you see? Nothing. I see nothing. Instead of just being like, I don't know, they have like a hologram of a bikini lady. They're playing a movie about a lady. I think they're playing one of those American Elvis movies I've heard so much about. Those American style Elvis movies.
But Guerrero's just like, you idiot. Who cares? Just keep watching. Whatever. And then he shows up in a helicopter. Well, yeah. As we have the guys at the base are all standing around being like, woo-hoo, we did it. We done-doed it all, right? We did. And Dallas is in the background being like, yeah, woo-ha, it's about states' rights. And then they're like, oh, sir, there's a helicopter approaching, and it has no armaments of any kind. Well, yeah, and it's also very clearly marked as a medical. They're like, we need to call for a medevac. Yeah, so the medical helicopter shows up, lands, and out walks Guerrero. Guerrero, the man who Ace Hunter knows as Duke. And so they just.
They have some shit back and forth where they're like, ah, Ace, you were always a card. Duke, you were a prince. They're like, ha, we've got jokes for each other. We'll hug. And it doesn't matter that you're leading some weird insurgent army and I'm also leading some weird insurgent army, but, you know.
What's up, my dude? Hey, how are you? Hey, you stole my lighter. Yeah. Oh, dude, you were drunk and gave it to me. Yeah, there's a whole back and forth about who owns this lighter, and it doesn't even end here. They're just like, you know what? Why don't you keep it then, if it's so important to you? No, I couldn't. I insist you keep this lighter. It just goes back. It takes too long. But eventually, while the two of them are palling around, joking about their whole situation, the general and Zara land, and the general's like, oh, terrible news, chap. May I speak with you in private? There's a problem.
Guerrero's like, yeah, you know what? I already know what it is, and it's fucking hilarious. So you can just say it in front of everybody. Just say it or I'm going to. The general's like, all right, so you guys did your job too well. The whole country's pissed at you, and we're not allowed to let you back in. Yeah, sorry, you can't cross the border.
You know, we have to disavow that we ever knew anything about you. I have a press conference I'm about to give where we say we never knew you and this isn't part of our doing. Yeah, which is weird. It makes you wonder why every country on the globe would agree to this whole Megaforce Suicide Squad thing. You'd think it'd be like insurance. You'd be like, yeah, if you try to restrict the movements of Megaforce, you're trying to restrict the movements of an army comprised of every military on the country but yours. Yes. Would you like to do that? Yeah, you'd think it would be like, oh, we're going to get real angry at Megaforce and fuck them up. You're like, don't do that. You don't want to. Megaforce is basically a mousetrap. And the spring on the mousetrap fires the rest of the world's militaries at you.
But no, instead it's, we are going to treat this extra force that has all of our best Tekken guys as the most dispensable thing, where if anything remotely goes wrong, then we can be like, ah, write them off, we'll just blow up all their vehicles and kill all these dudes. What, the government's just gonna let them kill us? What are we, some kind of X-Men? They only use us to get vengeance, like we're some kind of Avengers or something. Laugh-o. Yeah. I just wanted to do a callback. It's fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. But yeah, they're just like, ah, well, shit. And Guerrero's like, all right, I'll see you later. Bye. I'm definitely going to set an ambush so you can't leave the other way. Ah, fuck you. Hey, Eddie, before he leaves, he's like, hey, Ace, you want to get in the copter with me and leave? Like, you're badass. Yeah. And you're a great commander. Yeah. Like, you could just leave. Let these guys die. You don't have to die. That's not even his only offer. He's like, hey, I'll tell you what, Ace, if you throw down all your weaponry, you can just leave. I'll just let you leave. Yeah, just fuck off. Give me all your shit. All of you. I give you my guarantee that all of you can leave the border with no incident. Just
Don't take any of your equipment with you and you can go. And I'm like, I understand why they're trying to stop them because, you know, top secret equipment. But most of that's back at Megaforce headquarters. All he's going to end up with is a big pile of dirt bikes and dune buggies. With directed energy weapons. And self-destruct buttons. Yeah. Remote controlled self-destruct buttons. We don't know that. We do know that. Every time they use the self-destruct buttons, it's Needham doing it in his stupid weird techo wagon. Yeah, but they get Needham's wagon.
Give me that Wonkovator and you can fuck off. Need him stuck in there. We can't open it. We have to drop beef bourguignon down the top of it. That's all he'll eat. That's all he wants. Two heavy scoops of beef bourguignon and then we'll host his fruit pie twice a day. He's got a little hamster thing of water that he suckles at. Pushing that little ball. Need him thirsty.
So then they decide, all right, here's what we're going to do. We've gotten word back from headquarters that there is a path through the mountains behind where the column of armor is waiting for us so that we can go around behind them, blow up the waiting ambush, and then have our planes come and pick us up. Yeah. And there's no way Guerrero knows about this path through the mountains. I don't see why not. And the only people who could possibly use the path through the mountains are dirt bikes and dune buggies. Fuck yeah. It's a small pass. Oh, well, it feels like that'd make it more likely that Guerrero would have scouted it out and known about it.
Nope, he has no idea. He's got his back to it. No one knew about it because we only found out about it because we have a super secret satellite topographical map of the area that shows that there is a way through. You'd think that the people who would have maps of the area would be the people who live in and have previously mapped the area. But I guess I'm crazy. He doesn't live there. He's a mercenary with a mercenary force. That's true. But you'd think he'd have some local intel. Instead, he sets up with his back to the hot gates and he's about to get thermopiledrived. Yeah, he's like, oh, I've got mountains on three sides of me and one way through this area and it's over there. And the reason he's faced that way is also because...
The way in is through this wide open plane, so he's like, the second they try and show up, we will have forever to murder them. He's trying to do a Box Canyon thing, except there's a secret entrance to the Box Canyon just big enough for a Cobra Hiss tank. And that's it. Slightly bigger than a regular tank, but that's it. No bigger. So...
They go, I don't understand what the placement of the borders are, because they were like, oh, he's placed here so that they can't, like, leave through the border. I'm like, but if they can get around behind you, then wouldn't that mean they can get past you to a different border to some other country? Like, I don't understand what's going on here. And if this country's going to be pissed if you leave the border, why would they be less pissed if you leave in a plane than if you leave in a fucking dune body? Well, that means they never actually set foot in the country they're not allowed to land in.
Yeah. That's why. They were very clear with what they weren't allowed to do. You are not allowed to go back to that country right there and put your dirty feet in it. You can't do that. You can fly over it. Oh, definitely do that. Yeah. You can take a day flight to London and go on a date with the daughter of the president of that country, but you can't go to that country. Yeah. So, there's...
a fight scene that lasts forever and it's just bottle rockets and smoke. Bottle rockets and smoke effects. And Dallas stretching a Confederate flag over the radio antenna that's hanging off the back of every one of these dirt bikes. Fucking goddammit. And every one of them is firing off so many smoke missiles. They got Lowell. They got them Comanches. Those Estes Comanches. Those San Diego Comanches. And they're just firing off as many rockets as they want. Just up. None of the rockets are aimed at anything. Yeah. And of course, this isn't a movie that has the budget to show a tank exploding or anything. So every explosion happens about five feet away from anything else. Yes. This includes anything near a dune buggy or a bike.
No one has ever hit by anything. No one has ever hurt. People just sort of fall down, but get back up and get their bikes up and keep going. Yep. It is a bloodless war. And...
They send in two planes to get these guys. Two C-130s. And they're supposed to be like, well, you distract them. And while they're shooting at you, we'll come up behind them and blow them up. Which, no one gets blown up. Nothing matters. One of the airplanes gets a hit. And has to fuck off. It creates one of my favorite silly effects in this whole thing. One of the airplanes has to fuck off. Now you have to all get in this airplane. And that means you have to leave all your vehicles here. Yeah, because we've got to fit all of you into one plane. So we have to do the thing that we could have done in the first place by agreeing to just leave all of our equipment here.
Yeah, but we're going to blow it up first. We're going to self-destruct all this equipment. Then we'll get on the plane. Except they don't ever show anyone doing that. That would cost money. Yeah, because then you have to show them blowing up one of the dirt bikes they spent a million dollars on. Yeah.
So, yeah, it's this whole thing where they get around to behind the tank line. They can see the big line of tanks. There's Guerrera poking out the top of a tank like a Dan Quayle looking dude. They all look goofy. And we get a whole speech from Ace. He's like, we're going to go to the other side of them. Gentlemen, this is the day of our reckoning or whatever. It's just some bullshit. And then, yeah, it's just this long ass watching dirt bikes jump routine. And it goes on and on. I think my favorite part is the part where Hal Needham from inside of his Wonka Vader is like, hey, boys, he's talking to the C-130 pilots. They ain't going to shoot us from the back. Watch this. And he presses a button and all the vehicles start discharging.
Multicolored smoke. Yep. It's one of the coolest shots of the movie because it's like 50 dirt bikes dropping smoke and driving in a big line. And it's all like different color. You've got like yellow and red and green smoke going off. For a second, I thought they had the pride flag colors. The trans pride flag colors in particular. Yeah, no, just a whole bunch of colors. Just every color. It was just the first three were white, blue, and pink. And I was like, ooh, hey. Ooh. Megaforce said trans... Oh, yellow. Oh. Oh, okay. But it works. The tanks can't get a shot. And you'd think they just fire blindly and probably hit some of these dirt bikes. After all, they're riding next to each other. There's not really a spot you could shoot where you wouldn't hit a dirt bike.
Sure there is. It's about five feet behind them or in front of them. But one by one, they all make it across this giant open field. No one takes any damage except for some tanks that get blown up via green screen effects. Oh, yeah. Well, some lasers hit them and then it explodes. An explosion is superimposed in front of the tank. Yeah. But, oh, no. Everyone's made it except for Hunter, who got knocked off of his bike by the, I guess, the only person in a tank that has any ability to hit anything. Except for that C-130. Yeah. And so he gets knocked off his bike and they're all like, we can't go. We got to wait for Hunter. We need an extra minute. Oh, God. I hope he's on his way. He's not. He's going to go fucking have another conversation with Guerrera. Hunter picks his bike up and is like, ah, I could leave. But first.
to taunt and fuck with the general instead of just getting on the plane. Drives away from where they're getting picked up, goes to Guerrero and is like, hey, buddy, I just want to let you know, even though it's the 80s, the good guys still win. Anyway, here's a cigar. I'll see you for brunch. The good guys still win. Spoken like someone who has not lived through more than two years of the 80s. It's not like the 70s, you know, where the good guys won all the time. In the 70s. That's the best time for the good guys to win. You remember all those wars in the 70s where the good guys kept winning? Yeah, I think South Korea counts as the good guys, right? Yeah, sure.
But, I mean, the 80s is not an era where we're like, yeah, good triumphed over evil. Finally. Yeah. Yeah, no. So he then takes his dirt bike, but of course he has fucked around for so long that, you know, they have to be like, all right, we have to leave. Like, yeah, we have to fly. We can't sit here and fuck around and waste. We have to hope he's okay. And that he isn't, I don't know, showboating with General Guerrera instead of getting his ass over here. He isn't risking all of our lives so he can be mean to a guy. Yep.
But no, he is, and the plane is taking off, and he presses some fucking buttons. He finally goes, all right, Egg, I hope this works. One, and the tiniest baby wings come out from the backside of this motorcycle, and then two, and suddenly he's in green screen land. Yeah, he's flying with all the high-end tactical effects of like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Yes, he has a flying motorcycle, and he...
I mean, maybe it's just me. I don't know if you did this as well, but the moment he was airborne, I started humming the intro to Flying Nun. Do, do, do, do, do. I want some shots of Ramirez looking stunned off to the side. Oh, you. Oh, he's doing a little flippy. He even does a barrel roll. He does. Which is the stupidest. Oh, you're going to get sick doing stuff like that. Yeah, because he's flying towards the C-130, which is airborne now, but still has the back door open. Come on, you got to get in here on his flying motorcycle.
manages to land the motorcycle in the plane. And they all like catch it. Like there's a bunch of troops who like catch the motorcycles that's coming in. Yeah. I'm, I don't know.
Like, I guess that works. It's fine. Who cares? I don't want to know about the physics of it. Fuck it. Whatever. He lands a flying motorcycle on an already flying C-130. And then they decide to have a little send-off by going back to the country they're not allowed to go to. And because the only equipment they were allowed to keep was his flying motorcycle, everything else had to get blown up. He shoots one of his remaining rockets as they fly over the general and Zara by blowing up the general's helicopter as a fuck you to the general. Yeah. Even though...
Like, they have a conversation beforehand, and the general's like, I'm real sorry. Like, this comes from the top. It's not my decision. Yeah, but he is smiling when he does it. He's like, ah, we're gonna use you as we've always intended. And, you know, Boss looks like, it's all on the wheel. It all comes around again. Karma, bitch! And so he blows up this dude's helicopter and is like, yeah, karma! I'm like, that wasn't his helicopter. One. That belonged to the military. He didn't pay for that helicopter. And two, he didn't give the order to abandon you. I think it actually is supposed to be a callback, because there's a point earlier in the film where...
Zara is bragging or sort of making fun of the general. Well, they have a profile for the general and they're pointing out all the things they know. That his helicopter is extra fancy. Yeah, they're like, he loves it so much and spends so much time in it, he installed shag carpeting and air conditioning. The luxury. Yeah, so I think him getting his helicopter blown up is supposed to be like, ah, I blew up your favorite thing. Yeah, fuck you. And of course, they have the same reaction as like, you would have to a mischievous child. Oh yeah, it's like, they're just like, oh you. Yeah, it's just a Dennis the Menace reaction. Yeah. Oh, that scamp shooting rockets at our military hardware.
And then he's like, all right, well, I'm going to go fuck the president's daughter in London. Bye. End of movie. Credits. What the hell?
I feel like this might be one of our shortest reviews we've ever done. Nope. Okay, good. It just feels that way because the movie has like nothing. No, the movie has zero anything to it because for some reason, they decided that every time they paid for something professional, by God, they were going to use it. They will use every bit of the footage. Yes. So that means over the credits, there's just more of the same crap. It's just more of the same boring. It doesn't show anything. It's just like stunt drivers. Yeah. It's not even bloops. I was hoping for some sweet bloops and goofs. Bloops and goops. But no, just extra boring footage of dirt bikes. Ugh, sad face. But there you have it. There's Megaforce. Let's, uh...
Let's go ahead and get into our bests and worsts. Jeff, I want you to tell me, what part of Megaforce was the best for you? I think that the shock moment where, because there's a scene early on where the general is telling Hunter what his assignment is, and he's like, you have to go after this Guerrera guy. And Hunter's like, I know him. He's a good man. I've served with him. He's a good soldier. Yeah. The only reason he's a mercenary is because...
the government forced him to not fight against an invading force, and instead they saved themselves. Yeah, but even with that bit of information, it's still such a fun shock in the movie when Guerrero just shows up in their camp and he's just like, hey, let's hug it out. Hey, buddy, what's up? And he's like, hey, dude. Yeah, they just have this fun conversation. Like, I know it's supposed to be like underlying menace, but they both play it so broad that it feels like they're just actually happy to see each other. Yeah. And that's probably my favorite moment. It's just sort of a little bit of a shock value to be like, oh, the bad general's here. Oh, cool. Let's just show him around and have a nice time. Yeah. And even...
Fucking, when he's there at the same time as Burnwhite, and he's like, oh, you captured him. He's like, nah, we're not going to keep him. Yeah, exactly. Burnwhite's like, oh, you did it. That's amazing. Okay, good. Well, let's just go ahead and wrap him up. And he's like, nope, not in my camp. That guy walks free. That guy's great, and I like him. You can suck it, however. I can smell that you're about to betray me. It's so weird. It's so weird. Also, I can smell balls. When you hang out with this camp, like where every dude is wearing spandex and no underwear, you can always smell balls. Always. There's always balls in the air. Anyway.
So that's my favorite thing. That scene where the bad general shows up and they're just thrilled to see each other is a good little moment. Okay. It's kind of like in Thor Ragnarok, the part where Thor goes, yes, when he sees he's about to fight the Hulk. He's just excited because he knows who that is. So good moment. What about you? What's your favorite thing? My favorite thing right now is looking at one of the goofs in Megaforce's IMDB. There's a point where Guerrera and his second in command are playing. Well, it's not even a second in command. I think it's just the actual person that.
He's kind of like a common gaunt or something. Yeah. I think it's his liaison of that country. Oh, okay. So it's like, he's the mercenary that works for him. Oh, whatever. They're playing chess. Oh, right. He cheats. Yeah. And the second in command guy, like.
has to go get another bottle of rum or whatever. Yes. And Guerrero just cheats to win. And so he claims when the guy comes back, he's like, ha ha, checkmate. But if you look at the board, the queen can capture Silva's knight, which actually puts him in check. So technically he is not in checkmate. They fucked up their own thing. I think I'm pretty sure he moved a bishop from a black square to a white square anyway. Oh yeah. So I'm pretty sure. It's very clearly like you look at the board and go, Hey, wait a minute. I think the guy came back and he was like, Hey, that guy clearly cheated, but he's an evil mercenary general. All right. Well, you win. Yeah. Okay. Uh, but no, my, obviously my favorite thing in here is.
The reveal of the mess hall where everyone's in that dumb outfit. I was like, oh my God. Yeah, it really feels like they're setting up for a musical number. This is your formal outfit for your force. This is Megaforce's. We're putting on our fancy duds. Every one of us is dressed like Captain America did in 1939. Amazing. Love it. What is the worst thing in this movie for you? Confederate flags. God knows. As soon as I saw it on his shoulder, I was like, fuck you, Dallas. I kind of liked you as a weird dumb cowboy, but now fuck you.
I know people are going to be like, well, the Confederate flag wasn't this big of a deal in the 70s and 80s. Remember? Remember the Dukes of Hazzard? I'm like, yeah, I do. Not fondly. Here's the thing. I don't have nostalgia for that flag. And that show sucked. They're not even fans of the Dukes of Hazzard. They always jump over a creek. I get it. So, yeah. The fact that they were like, yeah, we sent the best and the brightest from all of our military countries in the world, including the Confederate States of America, yes, is the worst. Yeah, we sent this guy through time to go join your army. Well, no, it's just an alternate universe where the Civil War never ended.
They just settled into a stalemate. And we just don't get a mention of that. Yeah. So, you know, it's like we have Gamibia and also the Confederate States of America at the same time. Yeah. You got to assume that the dude they sent was like the least racist dude because he's willing to ride around in a car driven by a black guy. No, you don't understand. It doesn't matter that he's black. It's about states' rights. Yes, the states' rights to keep slaves. So that's my least favorite. What about you? I mean, outside of that, 100%, I think...
of all the interminable, like, this goes on too long, that skydiving scene was so bad. Yeah. Because it's either just minutes and minutes of watching, like, two very clearly not the same people professional skydivers skydiving, or the two actors on a green screen going, woo, I'm skydiving, someone put a desk fan near me, and that's the amount of wind that's happening right now. It also doesn't help that that scene goes nowhere, because it's all part of that stupid, like, we'll just let her try out for the army, and then when she succeeds, we'll tell her she still can't be in it. Yeah, I'm like, great, you put in a...
incredibly long, incredibly boring scene that served no purpose. Yeah. Thanks. Why does this movie have a romance in it? It didn't need it, and the movie actively resisted it. The movie was like, eh, we've been 20 minutes, it's enough of this. Eh, nah.
This is just crap that's in the way of Dirt Bikes and Dune Buggies. Like, dude, Dirt Bikes and Dune Buggies, the movie. You know, they were going to make a sequel of this. Okay. You know, it didn't happen because this cost 20 million to make and made three dollars. I mean, I feel like they could have focused on more. There's that scene where Sixkiller and some other guy, like the guy from Mexico, are like talking and they're back at their base. They're just like, how come we didn't get to go on the mission? We've had to spend all day just stacking rockets. Someday I'm going to do something cool.
Because my name's Sixkiller. No, that was the, because they're at the base where they refuel after they blew up the camp. Yeah. And they're like, oh, we didn't get to go on the raid. We had to go on the camp mission. Yeah. And they're just like, yeah, but we were the heroes of the last three missions we were on, so it's fine. Yeah. I'm like, aw, I want to know what those last three missions were. Presumably three of them were three of his six kills.
Yeah, if you went on this mission, you might be Sevenkiller. So anyway, yeah, it's not surprising to me that they planned the sequel for this, but Jesus Christ, why would you bother? Yeah. It is so bad. I would love to have found a couple of the toys they made from this. Oh, yeah. Can I tell you, when I said that we had a Delta Force game and I was talking about how there's a movie called Delta Force, I thought it was this. Because I've heard of this before and I've seen footage of it. It turns out there is a Delta Force movie as well that is not this, and it is a Chuck Norris movie. It's a canon film, just like I thought this was. Amazing. This seems like it should have the Golden Globus logo.
Oh, man. Anyway. This is great. I'm looking at the toys now. Anyway. Okay. So, we are going to rate the movie. Each of us giving a rating from zero to five to give it a total rating out of ten. Jeff. One and a half. Nice. That's pretty much right where I need this movie to be. It sucks. Yeah, it sucks out loud. Sucks out loud. But it's got so much, like, Barry Bostwick trying his best to carry the day. God bless him. Just big smile, big obvious dick. Just right out there. Big smile, big dick, big Barry Bostwick. Barry Bostwick is the unintentional Flash.
And that's why he gets a whole one and a half. It's just because it was fun to watch him just sort of gentle bend his way through the scenery. What about you? I mean, I'm going to give it a one and a half too. That's what it deserves. A three out of ten for this movie. It is boring and then slight little glimmers of hope whenever they let Bostwick do stuff. Yeah. They're like, hey, we're going to let you off the leash for like five minutes to go talk to this other actor. And he's like, oh, you better believe I'm going to ham it up as much as I can. Yeah. I mean, I might even give it a two for all the good Barry Bostwick stuff if 50% of his stuff was not intentionally leaning to stop Persis Combata from getting out of the room.
Half is footage of him being awesome with his dudes and the enemy general and so on. The other half is him being one elbow up on the wall. Where are you trying to go, baby? Why don't you stay here and talk to me, a military gentleman? Hey, I'm a guy. You're a lady. You're a lady. I'm a guy. Come on, do the math. That kind of shit. Let's look at each other's tits. Why don't you try and join my army and I'll pretend I'm going to let you? He's like, fuck you, dude. Yeah. So, one and a half all around. Yep, three out of ten. Not a good movie at all. No, no. Definitely a movie where you can just watch, like, go to YouTube and look up a highlight reel. Yeah, go look up some clips because God knows, seeing that something is...
bad and dumb for like 20 seconds is much better than the like five minutes that you have to sit through watching the movie yes so there you go all right thank you so much for joining us and we will of course be back another couple weeks with more movie mastery but there's more a big but a giant but if that raccoons help that's no moon So we are doing TV Mastery. We are about to finish up our look back in time at The Flying Nun mentioned in this episode. We are going to watch the final episode of The Flying Nun, season three, episode 24 or something. It is the last one and it's...
It's not the last, they did not know they were done. Yeah, they did not plan for this to be a send-off, although I gotta say, the theme of it, appropriate. Yep, that's perfectly fine. Please join us if you head over to patreon.com slash system mastery. You can support us there. Anything, of course, helps, and all of the levels unlock different content. They sure do. The $5 level unlocks everything that we do, including the TV mastery, but also all of our system mastery stuff, our expounded universe stuff. And the afterthought. All of that, plus some extra stuff in our Discord. You got it. It's all great, it's all good, everyone loves it.
Join it. It lets us keep making this content for you to enjoy. That's right. We have to keep paying real actual dollars to watch this crap. So at least we can afford it. At least this one they didn't try and upsell me on the HD on Amazon. No, they were like, hey, it's SD. We're not giving you an HD version of Megaforce. You think we have the original transfer of this? You think anyone's got a master of Megaforce? No. All right. We will, of course, be back later. Thank you so much for joining us. And to all of you out there, you have a good one.