Oh man, so here’s the thing, I went to this school for scoundrels and, naturally, while learning to be a total dick to people someone punched me right in the face and I got a massive concussion. Now I can’t remember a thing! Do you remember what happened in School for Scoundrels?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) Heder has a load of people stepping on him in his life. Like at his job. What does he do for a living?
2) How does Heder learn about the School for Scoundrels anyways?
3) What are Heder’s tasks that he has to do for class? That is, prior to him getting his personal assignment of starring in a romantic comedy (there are two).
4) Well, things are looking up now for Heder. He’s getting the girl … and what’s that? Mr. P is trying to go out with her too?! But why? Why would he do that (he claims)?
5) Who does Heder to go visit to get his mojo back at the end of the film?
Bonus Question: In the mid-credits scene Heder gets two calls back-to-back, from whom?
Jamie, Patrick and the rest of the team backflip their way into the Fortress. Halfway through his third backflip, however, Patrick notices something is off. “Stop! Stop backflipping!” he yells and once everyone is reoriented they notice the same thing. The halls of the school building are completely empty. Their steps ring out in the empty hallways until they finally reach a set of heavy steel doors. Jamie and Patrick fling them open, instantly bathes in an eerie blue light emanating from the doorway. They gasp. They find themselves in the ethereal beauty of a submarine pen. A submarine pen? On the grounds of the school? But why? Suddenly they begin to hear the cracking sounds of slow clapping and from behind the submarine emerges Jamie and Patrick themselves. But it can’t be, can it? “No, my sweet Bad Movie Twins, you haven’t been betrayed by yourselves. We have won!” the Jamie double cackles, before they both pull off their latex masks. Jamie and Patrick aren’t surprised to see it’s actually two Mikey Time Cops. The Time Cops pull their guns and laugh maniacally, but Jamie and Patrick just smirk. “Sure, sure, you’re gonna shoot,” Patrick says before they both theatrically motion for one of them to kick the other in the testicles. And yet nothing happens. “Oh shit,” Jamie mutters, “are you both bad Mikey Time Cops?” They nod, confused as to what else they would be. This looks like the end for our heroes. But wait! Suddenly there is a loud pop and from a hole in the sky a large machine falls and crushes the bad Mikey’s. Out from the steaming time machine walks Lou Cash. “You did it you scoundrels!” he screams, much to the delight and confusion of everyone there. That’s right! We are watching School for Scoundrels as a transition to the next cycle: Films adapted from European films a.k.a. Merde. We got so very close to getting a roster of all French films, but could resist a couple out of the box. So let’s sit back and enjoy School for Scoundrels adapted from the 1960 British film, School for Scoundrels. Let’s go!
School for Scoundrels (2006) – BMeTric: 33.2; Notability: 55
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 24.8%; Notability: top 8.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 27.1%; Higher BMeT: Date Movie, The Wicker Man, Ultraviolet, Pledge This!, Little Man, Basic Instinct 2, Material Girls, Zoom, Big Momma’s House 2, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Black Christmas, The Marine, The Shaggy Dog, DOA: Dead or Alive, Pulse, Phat Girlz, Eragon, Scary Movie 4, The Grudge 2, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, and 42 more; Higher Notability: Poseidon, The Wild, The Da Vinci Code, Eragon, Scary Movie 4, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Happily N’Ever After, Click, The Pink Panther, Smokin’ Aces, The Guardian, The Black Dahlia, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, Zoom, The Shaggy Dog, A Good Year, Lady in the Water, Factory Girl, All the King’s Men; Lower RT: The Contract, Kiss Me Again, Karla, Pledge This!, Material Girls, Happily N’Ever After, The Covenant, Zoom, Big Momma’s House 2, Deck the Halls, Basic Instinct 2, Date Movie, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Gray Matters, Ultraviolet, When a Stranger Calls, See No Evil, Annapolis, Stay Alive, Pulse, and 47 more; Notes: Way higher IMDb rating that I expected, but sticking nicely below/around 6.0. The Notability is off the chain though! Solid for a comedy.
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Nerdy guy who lets people step all over him is recruited by a mysterious entrepreneur who runs a class for worms in need of turning. But our would-be hero isn’t prepared for his “teacher” to start playing dirty tricks on him. Most contemporary comedies are too crude for our taste, but this one is terminally bland and never takes off as it repeatedly promises to do. Remake of the 1960 British comedy.
(Interesting. I think if this is made today it is probably very heartfelt, while also being crude (but in a way that teaches the hero that it is worth it not to be, you know?). I am surprised though, I would have figured this was just the right year to have a horrible no-good remake of a film like School for Scoundrels that aged horribly.)
(A hard r in the trailer itself really is a bold move. The mid-00s were a wild time. Also the film looks aggressively not funny.)
Directors – Todd Phillips – ( Known For: Joker; The Hangover; War Dogs; Road Trip; Old School; Starsky & Hutch; Future BMT: The Hangover Part II; Due Date; The Hangover Part III; BMT: School for Scoundrels; Notes: Apparently he originally directed Borat, but quit due to creative differences with Cohen.)
Writers – Todd Phillips – ( Known For: Joker; War Dogs; Road Trip; Old School; Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan; Starsky & Hutch; Future BMT: The Hangover Part II; Due Date; The Hangover Part III; BMT: School for Scoundrels; Notes: Nominated for four Oscars, three for Joker, and one for the original Borat.)
Scot Armstrong – ( Known For: Road Trip; Old School; Starsky & Hutch; Search Party; Future BMT: The Heartbreak Kid; The Hangover Part II; Semi-Pro; BMT: School for Scoundrels; Notes: Wrote some sort of remake of Problem Child? There isn’t even a poster on IMDb, so I can’t even make fun of that.)
Hal E. Chester – ( Known For: Curse of the Demon; School for Scoundrels; The Weapon; Crashout; Joe Palooka, Champ; Gentleman Joe Palooka; BMT: School for Scoundrels; Notes: Wrote the original. Was uncredited here, which is interesting since he was somehow still alive when this was made! He was 85 years old.)
Patricia Moyes – ( Known For: School for Scoundrels; BMT: School for Scoundrels; Notes: Irish, and similarly wrote the original. Died in 2000, so didn’t get to see this made.)
Stephen Potter – ( Known For: School for Scoundrels; The Shipbuilders; BMT: School for Scoundrels; Notes: Wrote the original novels that the original film was based on. Obviously wasn’t alive for this film, he would have been 106. That would have been a trick. He died in 1969.)
Actors – Billy Bob Thornton – ( Known For: Tombstone; Love Actually; Princess Mononoke; Blood In, Blood Out; Monster’s Ball; Friday Night Lights; Sling Blade; The Judge; Puss in Boots; Dead Man; The Informers; A Simple Plan; The Baytown Outlaws; U Turn; Faster; The Man Who Wasn’t There; Bad Santa; Intolerable Cruelty; Parkland; Whiskey Tango Foxtrot; Future BMT: London Fields; Indecent Proposal; Entourage; Eagle Eye; Our Brand Is Crisis; The Alamo; Bad Santa 2; BMT: Armageddon; Going Overboard; On Deadly Ground; School for Scoundrels; Mr. Woodcock; Notes: From Arkansas, won an Oscar for writing Sling Blade. Has been married six times, including to Angelina Jolie famously.)
Jon Heder – ( Known For: Napoleon Dynamite; Just Like Heaven; Blades of Glory; Monster House; Surf’s Up; Reality; The Sasquatch Gang; Walt Before Mickey; Mama’s Boy; For Ellen; Life Happens; Christmas Eve; Ghost Team; Weepah Way for Now; Bling; Legend of Kung Fu Rabbit; The Tiger Hunter; Unexpected Race; The Little Penguin Pororo’s Racing Adventure; Moving McAllister; BMT: The Benchwarmers; When in Rome; School for Scoundrels; Notes: Became famous for Napoleon Dynamite. Does a lot of voice acting these days.)
Jacinda Barrett – ( Known For: The Last Kiss; Hide and Seek; Middle Men; New York, I Love You; The Human Stain; The Namesake; Ladder 49; Campfire Tales; Ripley Under Ground; Seven in Heaven; Matching Jack; So B. It; BMT: Poseidon; Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason; Urban Legends: Final Cut; School for Scoundrels; Notes: From Australia, and was on the fourth season of The Real World, which took place in London. Hasn’t done much since the show Bloodline ended in 2017.)
(Not great at all. And given the absurdly stacked comedy cast this film sports, that budget makes perfect sense.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 26% (36/138): School for Scoundrels squanders its talented cast with a formulaic, unfocused attempt at a romantic comedy that’s neither romantic nor funny.
(A talented cast indeed. Just watch the trailer. David Cross, Paul Sheer, Matt Walsh, etc.! It is crazy good.)
Reviewer Highlight: It feels as if director Phillips was scrounging desperately for morsels with comic potential and came up empty-handed. – Claudia Puig, USA Today
(Wow, that’s a bad poster. Like F level bad. Funny cause that’s not typically the poster I think of for the film, but sometimes it’s difficult to figure what was really used to advertise. There are so many words. But fine, the font has a little vim and vigor so it’s a D.)
Tagline(s) – Too nice? Too honest? Too you? Help is on the way. (B)
(It’s too long, but otherwise it’s actually not bad in concept. Like it’s got a rule of three in there. Also it is a little clever curveball. All good things and then saying don’t worry, this asshole will help you. Just needed to figure out a way to tighten it up and make it flow.)
Keyword(s) – dimension
Top 10: Sin City (2005), Spectre (2015), The Others (2001), Scream (1996), Equilibrium (2002), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Mist (2007), Death Proof (2007), 1408 (2007), Scary Movie (2000)
Future BMT: 86.6 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 82.8 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 77.5 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 77.0 Superhero Movie (2008), 70.1 Black Christmas (2006), 68.6 Pulse (2006), 66.9 The Crow: City of Angels (1996), 64.9 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 61.8 Cursed (2005), 59.0 Apollo 18 (2011)
BMT: Scary Movie V (2013), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994), Halloween II (2009), Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), My Boss’s Daughter (2003), Highlander: Endgame (2000), Dracula 2000 (2000), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998), Phantoms (1998), Boys and Girls (2000), Texas Rangers (2001), Reindeer Games (2000), Halloween (2007), School for Scoundrels (2006), Fortress (1992), Senseless (1998), Impostor (2001), Mindhunters (2004)
Best Options (European Remake): 33.2 School for Scoundrels (2006)
(Oh yeah! The only one available baby! Indeed we had to move School for Scoundrels from the comedy spot because it needed to be here. It is a bit insane just how many Dimension films we have left. We could almost make a whole new cycle from it … might be missing a romance. Unclear.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 13) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Michael Clarke Duncan is No. 5 billed in School for Scoundrels and No. 4 billed in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which also stars Chris Klein (No. 2 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 2 billed) => (5 + 4) + (2 + 2) = 13. There is no shorter path at the moment.
Notes – Ben Stiller’s cameo was shot in two days in California because he was unable to fly to New York for filming, due to a scheduling conflict.
Director Todd Phillips first offered the lead role to Howard Stern (Phillips is a big Stern fan), but Stern had to turn it down because he was about to leave terrestrial radio for satellite radio and did not have the time to film a movie. The role eventually went to Billy Bob Thornton.
Diego (Horatio Sanz) says, “Things are going to change, I can feel it,” quoting Beck’s song, “Loser.”
Aziz Ansari’s unnamed character’s only dialogue is a short scene with fellow classmate Ernie (Jon Glaser). The two actors would later have major roles in NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” as Tom Haverford and Councilman Jeremy Jamm respectively.
To date, this is Todd Phillips’s only movie that isn’t distributed by DreamWorks or Warner Bros.
Dr. P’s rules “From the Bar to your Bed” are: Be dangerous, it’s cool. No compliments, *ever*. Always get the girl alone. Wherever you are, the place is lame! Relate to her. Lie, lie, and lie some more. (Gross)
Fortress is my kind of film. Don’t hate. Participate… in unironically watching Fortress, a future prison film starring Christopher Lambert. If the description itself doesn’t get your juices flowing then… uh… I guess you shouldn’t watch it. That’s probably a prerequisite to enjoying this film. Alright, shall I do the honors? It’s not that bad! It’s not that bad! It’s not that bad!
To briefly recap, Lambert and his wife are attempting to escape to Canada. There is an ultra strict one child policy in the United States and even though their first child died they are not allowed to have the second. They would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those damn kids… or more accurately a boneheaded mistake by Lambert. Anywho, he ends up in a future prison deep in the ground in the desert where they put an explosive probe inside you to keep you in line and there are laser beams and robots and stuff. And not just any robot either, it’s a Kurtwood Smith robot/cyborg warden. Word. Lambert is former military so it isn’t long before he gains the trust of everyone and he learns that his wife didn’t make it to Canada like he had hoped. She is being kept captive by Kurtwood himself. Lambert is like “helll noooo” and they form a plan. They incite a riot and are able to overcome the robot guards and make it to the top of the prison. Kurtwood is dispatched by his robot overlords because he kinda screwed everything up by falling in love with Lambert’s smoking hot wife. But before they can dispatch the prisoners, one of them (a real leet haxxor) implants a virus in the prison computer system. With everything shut down, Lambert is able to escape to Mexico where his wife has her baby. Sweet success. THE END.
So this movie is pretty rad. It’s not a work of art or anything, and Lambert is… well, he’s Lambert, but it looks cool and the concept is cool. I don’t have too much to criticize even before gushing about Kurtwood Smith. Not only is he a fun actor, but his character was legit interesting. So he’s a cyborg and suddenly sees Loryn Locklin and is like, “What doth rumble in these robot loins?” He is smitten even though he really doesn’t even know what it all means. They explain that illegal children born in the prison are taken from the mothers and are used to create the cyborgs. So Kurtwood would be such a product. And so I wonder if in some way he is creating his own family. He will save her, the baby will become a cyborg, and truly will become the offspring of he and Locklin. Obviously none of this would have ever happened and it’s secondary to the sci-fi shoot-em-up of the rest of the film, but you have to give them some credit. I’ve thought more about that part of Fortress than I have about critically acclaimed films. So yeah, I think I actually liked this movie. As for Beowulf, the point of the bring-a-friends are to find some weird fun not-quite-theatrical releases to enjoy and enjoy Beowulf I did. It is super duper weird. Like have to be seen to be believed type of weird. Some truly hilarious moments during several of the fight scenes. At one point Lambert gets totally roasted by a CGI monster after doing a thousand backflips in a row. So yeah, mission accomplished.
Finally, Hot Take Clam Bake: Lambert and Karen made a selfish mistake by escaping. So you’re saying that the United States is in such disarray that they have imposed a strict one child policy where you can’t have a miscarriage? And yet Mexico and Canada are going to be totally cool with you guys setting up shop? Unlikely. You, your wife, and a newborn are going to def be on the run. Great life for a child, bro. Guess what is a good life? It’s called cyborg life. If it’s good enough for Kurtwood Smith, it’s good enough for your baby. They got your genes, bro, that cyborg gonna run that prison. Sounds pretty great, cause the rest of the world seems like shit. Hot Take Temperature: Mango Habanero. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Fortress? More like Bore-tress! Amirite? Nope! Because there are two things in life I enjoy: Christopher Lambert, and films set in future prisons. And lo! What do we have here? Let’s go!
I unironically like this film. Sue me! I wasn’t joking when I said I love films set in future prisons. They are so simple. There is an evil warden (who maybe is a robot). It is some brutal hellscape with prisoners basically just killing each other in a gladiator type setting. There is often a sweet “hook” for the prison design. In this case the prison is a giant pit in the desert, how brutalist of you Prison Director Poe. So modern. So chic. See I love this garbage! It’s great.
Christopher Lambert … is there. He has an interesting acting quality to him. In many ways he shares some qualities with someone like Seagal. His acting is unique, charming in its own way. When used correctly you get a Highlander or Hard to Kill out of it. But his demise as a star was inevitable. His accent, like with Van Damme, lends a flat quality to the dialogue and eventually you have seen everything he is able to do. By all accounts he’s a delightful person though, and he had a very solid career, so there is no shame.
Kurtwood Smith on the other hand is maybe the coolest villain actor of that era. With this and Robocop it is incredible that you don’t see the looks-like-a-nerd-but-is-a-horrible-piece-of-garbage-who-will-gladly-shoot-you-in-the-face villain a lot more often. It is incredibly unsettling and sinister when done well. This is no exception.
The set design is pretty sweet. The prison break idea is pretty sweet. His friends are all pretty sweet! So again, is it any surprise I unironically like this film? This film isn’t bad. What were the critics thinking?! … They were thinking that the film was a downer that focused too much on the fascism and sadism involved in the prison. I mean, maybe fair, but also undeniably entertaining! This film probably won’t qualify in a few years. Book it.
I’m going to give it a Setting as a Character (Where?) for the future prison, although I could have made a compelling argument that the entire film is specifically set in the Mojave Desert, but I won’t. A great Future Film (When?) for the film taking place in 2017, you mean I missed Fortress year? That’s all for the superlatives, but you know this might be the front runner for Good this year, I don’t see how I don’t continue to think it is amazing six months from now.
I’ll close with saying that our friend this cycle, Beowulf (1999), is crazy. B-b-b-b-b-b-beowulf is b-b-b-b-b-b-b-bonkers. It is like they had a set from, I don’t know, a medieval Power Rangers knockoff, and were like “You have seven days to make a movie, go!” The first half of the film is a bit boring maybe, but amusing in realizing this odd mismash of future and past is intended to be Beowulf in any capacity at all. And then, oh ho, you get the big battle between Beowulf and Gredel and let’s just say it involves two words: endless backflips. Christopher Lambert’s character can’t just do a dozen backflips in a row, he insists on doing a dozen backflips in a row. Multiple times in this film he does a dozen backflips in a row, often while splashing through ankle deep water. It is hilarious, and makes it all worth it. Close on a bad CGI villain that puts The Scorpion King to shame, and we have a recipe for an incredible friend. A-. If you add one more fight with a dozen backflips near the beginning of the film then this is gold. As it is it is a bit of a struggle to get to the goods. Still worth it though.
Look for the sequel to Fortress Fortress 2: The Raid Prison Break Season 4 in the Quiz. Cheerios,
Oh man, so get this? I was thrown into a future prison forever for trying to make babies, and now I have to karate chop the evil robot warden to get out! Unfortunately, a big baddie bopped me on the head during a fight and now I can’t remember a thing! Do you remember what happened in Fortress?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) In the beginning we see the horrible crime that Lambert and his wife committed. Making babies. How do they plan on getting by the scanning on the Canadian border so they can have their babies in peace?
2) Welp, that obviously didn’t work. And now both of them are in Future Prison, and Future Prison SUCKS. Future Prison is run by Prison Director Poe. What makes Poe so special?
3) Tangentially, what happens to all of the babies born in Future Prison?
4) How do they get the map of the prison from Poe’s office?
5) Ultimately how do they figure out they can get the Stomach Exploder Devices out of their stomachs so they don’t explode when they try to escape?
Bonus Question: At the end of the film we see Lambert and his wife taking care of their child in Mexico. But what a twist! What happens in the mid-credits scene?
<!–more Answers–>
Answers
1) Lambert and his wife are in the military, and thus they have access to flak jackets. Apparently this blocks the bio sensors enough to allow them to sneak by the guards … that is, if the guards don’t notice, which they do!
2) Poe is like a human cyborg-y thing. He has a lot of installed robotics and he doesn’t have to eat or sleep or anything, he just exchanges various fluids ever so often in his office. He believes that his kind are the future, and that soon enough all of humanity will be horrible robot people. We’ll see about that!
3) The babies are all turned into cyborgs. Mostly they seem to be lowly drones whose jobs seem to be to just be a standing army for the corporation that runs the prison. But every so often you get a sweet Poe who can do so much more (until he BLOWS IT).
4) One of Lambert’s prison buddies is the barber / general helper for Poe in his office. He is promised consideration when parole comes up … but everyone knows he isn’t going to be paroled ever. So he decides to help, and with the aid of Lambert’s wife he manages to sneak the map out to Lambert so that they can plan their escape.
5) So earlier in the film the original Big Bad guy gets got and in the process Lambert ends up palming an exploder device. They pass it off to another prison buddy (an explosives expert) who studies it and figured out that it is highly magnetic, so you can draw it up and out of your stomach (easily although painfully). Et voila, it is time for the great escape.
Bonus Answer: We see Lambert’s wife turn on him and attack him, and indeed, what a twist! She has a robot brain! Replaced at some point in prison. Lambert kills his wife, but now will do anything to avenge her death. Sneaking back into Future Hellscape Los Angeles (FHLA) Lambert finds what is, in effect, the inverse of the Future Prison, the Men-Tel Coporate Headquarters. Getting together a ragtag team made up of vengeful relatives of his prison friends, Lambert plans for his version of Prison Break Season 4. It is time to break in and steal Scylla kill the Men-Tel CEO. Moving from floor to floor a la The Raid (wait, is this movie just a montage of other IP? … yeah probably), Lambert finally reaches the top only to realize that Men-Tel is being run by a robot!? No matter, time to eat lead robot CEO! Taking down the corporation Lambert triumphantly returns to Future Prison and releases everyone and they live happily in Mexico with Lambert’s son Abraham.
I would buy that for a dollar. It is called Fortress 2: The Raid Prison Break Season 4. Just tell it how it is.
“No, no, no, this is a mistake,” Jamie pleads as Kyle approaches with a glint in his eye suggesting he’s ready to pound some dweebs. “Who are you?” he yells, gripping Jamie by the collar. “Stop it, Kyle,” Patrick says calmly, “Think of everything you’ve gone through? When you were tracking our path through time, what did you find?” Kyle’s grip loosens as he remembers. “It was… better. You were making things better,” he says, breathing heavily. “That’s right,” Jamie continues, rubbing his neck and taking a step back, “and if we were these other twins, or whatever, why would we have come here? They are clearly hiding. Whoever these other twins are, they are the imposters. We are the Bad Movie Twins.” Kyle nods and they share a triple bro hug. Tears streaming down their faces they turn to Rachel and ask that she show them exactly what they are dealing with. An hour later, wearing the patented BMT black canadian tuxedos they designed for just such a situation (and they never leave home without them), they peer over a small hill at the lakeside Hallston Academy compound. Rachel wasn’t kidding. Armed guards, search lights, barbed wire, oil slicks, tacks, guard dogs, robot guard dogs, laser drones, half-cyborg bears, several hornet nests filled with specially trained hornets, several other hornet nests filled with regular hornets, you name it. “This isn’t a compound, this is a gosh darn fortress,” Jamie mutters, “And you know what a fortress needs?” Kyle, Patrick and Jamie all say it at once and without an ounce of irony: “Teamwork, yeah!” Searching the town, they not only find LePumice and Ty, they also conveniently find a couple more black jeans suits. With that Jamie pulls out one of his classic catchphrases, “Fortress schmortress.” That’s right, we’re watching another Christopher Lambert classic in Fortress. A high-tech futuristic prison that Lambert has to escape from? Say no more. Seriously shut your mouth, I’m busy watching this high-tech prison movie. Oh, I guess we do have to mention that we are pairing this with the amazing looking Lambert vehicle Beowulf. Fun fact, this was the first english language film adaptation of Beowulf. For real. Let’s go!
Fortress (1992) – BMeTric: 33.1; Notability: 22
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 10.0%; Notability: top 21.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 26.4%; Higher BMeT: Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Body of Evidence, Cool World, Pet Sematary II, Toys, Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice, 3 Ninjas, The Lawnmower Man, Sleepwalkers, Sidekicks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freejack, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, Beethoven, Aces: Iron Eagle III, Evil Toons, Ladybugs, Dr. Giggles, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, Encino Man, and 5 more; Higher Notability: Toys, Cool World, Newsies, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Freejack, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, The Bodyguard, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Innocent Blood, Universal Soldier, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, This Is My Life, Encino Man, The Mighty Ducks, Radio Flyer, The Distinguished Gentleman, Kuffs, Mom and Dad Save the World, Man Trouble, and 34 more; Lower RT: Once Upon a Crime…, Folks!, Year of the Comet, Live Wire, Love Crimes, Frozen Assets, Cool World, Man Trouble, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them, Body of Evidence, Mom and Dad Save the World, Claire of the Moon, Passed Away, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Ladybugs, Mr. Baseball, The Distinguished Gentleman, The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, and 41 more; Notes: Ah that’s more like it. After a few crazy high Notability films in a row, 22 is just about what I would expect for this. Just a little push to get this to 6.0 and it’ll basically be “average”.
Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – Husband and wife flee futuristic society (which forbids them from having a second child) because she is pregnant again. They’re captured and sent to a high-tech maximum security prison run by the sadistic warden. (Is there another kind?) Intriguing premise is sabotaged by weak acting and a weaker script. Incredible international success resulted in a sequel.
(Yeah I could see that. All of the notes are about how everything was looking promising and awesome for a bit, and then all of the money disappeared and you got a borderline straight-to-video release in the end.)
(Ha, halfway to hell. God I love cheesy sci-fi nonsense. Combine that with a future prison filled with robots? Forget about it. Leonard Maltin is a fool, this movie must be great!)
Directors – Stuart Gordon – ( Known For: Re-Animator; From Beyond; Dagon; Dolls; Space Truckers; The Pit and the Pendulum; Robot Jox; Edmond; King of the Ants; Stuck; The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit; BMT: Fortress; Notes: Well known for producing H. P. Lovecraft adaptations on a small budget. He is known for casting Jeffrey Combs in films, and this is no exception.)
Writers – Troy Neighbors – ( Known For: Fortress 2: Re-Entry; BMT: Fortress; Notes: He was the casting director for Enemy Mine. He gets character credits for the sequel, so I assume he wrote the original script.)
Steven Feinberg – ( Known For: Fortress 2: Re-Entry; BMT: Fortress; Notes: His biography claims he produced Moonrise Kingdom, but IMDb suggests he got a “grateful acknowledgment”. He has a crazy number of “grateful acknowledgement”s. He’s still getting them. He has a “thanks” for Hocus Pocus 2 coming out this year.)
David Venable – ( BMT: Fortress; Notes: He’s written a few TV Movies, but otherwise this is his only feature film. He wrote a single episode of SeaQuest 2032.)
Terry Curtis Fox – ( BMT: Fortress; Notes: Almost exclusively wrote for television including JAG, Stargate SG-1, and Diagnosis Murder.)
Actors – Christopher Lambert – ( Known For: Highlander; Hail, Caesar!; Southland Tales; Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes; Kickboxer: Retaliation; Resurrection; Subway; Beowulf; The Sicilian; Knight Moves; Bel Canto; Sobibor; White Material; Fortress 2: Re-Entry; Un + Une; Why Me?; Nirvana; Druids; North Star; The Point Men; Future BMT: Loaded Weapon 1; The Hunted; Gunmen; BMT: Mortal Kombat; Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance; Highlander II: The Quickening; Fortress; Highlander: Endgame; Highlander: The Final Dimension; Notes: Lambert is French, although born in America and raised in Switzerland as his father was a diplomat. By all accounts a great guy, at least on the set of Mortal Kombat, and still acting with 10 projects in a state of production.)
Loryn Locklin – ( Known For: Catch Me If You Can; Denial; Future BMT: Taking Care of Business; BMT: Fortress; Notes: She was on JAG for six years, after which is seems like she retired.)
Kurtwood Smith – ( Known For: A Time to Kill; Girl, Interrupted; Dead Poets Society; RoboCop; Deep Impact; To Die For; Turbo; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; Broken Arrow; Hitchcock; Boxing Helena; Cedar Rapids; Last of the Dogmen; Heart and Souls; Amityville: The Awakening; Quick Change; El Camino Christmas; Citizen Ruth; Prefontaine; Shadows and Fog; Future BMT: Firestarter; The Crush; Under Siege 2: Dark Territory; Staying Alive; Oscar; BMT: Rambo III; Fortress; Notes: Most people probably know him for either That 70s Show or RoboCop. He’s in That 90s Show as well, which is coming out soon.)
(Sources claim that it did well internationally, but I guess I don’t really trust Box Office Mojo prior to around 2000 completely. Could also just mean it did well on television and home video though.)
(Fact: I don’t think this is qualifying in a year or so. I think someone will give it a good review and then eventually it’ll settle at like 44% or something and never get close again. The consensus is basically: Fun with a unique look the problem with the movie is just that it is kind of a bummer.)
Reviewer Highlight: Even the requisite gore is sub-par, so it’s not even neat when some poor sap explodes and his entrails whiz by. Perhaps Gordon should go back to mining H.P. Lovecraft’s territory. – Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
(Hahaha. Nope. That could honestly be the poster for any Christopher Lambert film. I’m not even really sure what they were trying to do. At least it has a color scheme and the gradient on the font is OK. C-.)
Tagline(s) – In the year 2017 one corporation is building a fortress for the ultimate takeover… your mind. (F)
(What thuuuuu. I don’t know what any of that means or really what it has to do with the film Fortress. They are not doing that. They are building a fortress as a prison.)
Keyword(s) – dimension
Top 10: Sin City (2005), Spectre (2015), The Others (2001), Scream (1996), Equilibrium (2002), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Mist (2007), Death Proof (2007), 1408 (2007), Scary Movie (2000)
Future BMT: 86.6 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 82.8 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 77.5 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 77.0 Superhero Movie (2008), 70.1 Black Christmas (2006), 68.6 Pulse (2006), 66.9 The Crow: City of Angels (1996), 64.9 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 61.8 Cursed (2005), 59.0 Apollo 18 (2011)
BMT: Scary Movie V (2013), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994), Halloween II (2009), Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), My Boss’s Daughter (2003), Highlander: Endgame (2000), Dracula 2000 (2000), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998), Phantoms (1998), Boys and Girls (2000), Texas Rangers (2001), Reindeer Games (2000), Halloween (2007), Fortress (1992), Senseless (1998), Impostor (2001), Mindhunters (2004)
Best Options (Christopher Lambert):33.0 Fortress (1992), 30.5 Gunmen (1993)
(Phew. Not that Gunman looks terrible, it looks pretty amusing. We chose this first and then went for Lambert’s best non-theatrical release for Dimension. There aren’t that many people who made multiple Dimension films and less that made both theatrical and non-theatrical, so this was pretty limiting. Very excited for Fortress though.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 14) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Christopher Lambert is No. 1 billed in Fortress and No. 5 billed in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 5 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 5) + (1 + 1) + (5 + 1) = 14. There is no shorter path at the moment.
Notes – According to an interview with director Stuart Gordon, Arnold Schwarzenegger was to star as John Brennick since Arnold was a big fan of Re-Animator (1985) in which Arnold’s stunt-double, Peter Kent was a cast member. Stuart Gordon: “…it was Arnold Schwarzenegger that got me the job and it was because of Re-Animator. We used Arnold’s body-double in Re-Animator. The first reanimated corpse is a guy named Peter Kent, Arnold’s double. He’s got those big muscles. He got Arnold to see Re-Animator and Arnold liked it so much that he had a screening of it in his home, inviting all of these people, including producer John Davis. John had the rights to Fortress and Arnold was going to do it. For some reason, I’m not sure why, Arnold finally decided that he wasn’t going to do the movie and dropped out. They had a big budget, probably like 60 million, 70 million dollars, which was a huge budget in those days. Now it sounds small. [laughs] Anyway, he dropped out and the budget went down. They cut the budget to about 15 million dollars.”
The film takes place in 2017.
Due to the fact that star Christopher Lambert had worked on several large scale productions, he was hired by the film’s producers as a consultant and oversaw filming.
Filmed at Warner Brothers Movie World in Queensland, Australia.
The film performed very strongly internationally, especially in Europe where Christopher Lambert is a bigger name, and in Australia, where it was filmed. The film also enjoyed a long and profitable afterlife on VHS.
Zed-10, the artificial intelligence running the prison, is voiced by Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, wife of director Stuart Gordon.
Although the film opened strong in the US on its opening weekend, Dimension Films found their movie losing screens when a wave of new releases in the next coming weeks took over most of the multiplexes.
Stuart Gordon was set to direct Body Snatchers (1993) when he got Arnold Schwarzenegger and producer John Davis’s offer to direct Fortress instead. Gordon accepted, although Schwarzenegger would eventually drop out.
A television series based on this film was briefly considered: the “Fortress” television series would continue on from this film and would follow John and Karen as they are pursued by the Men-Tel Corporation and they raise their baby son Danny. It became a sequel instead, Fortress 2: Re-Entry (2000).
I keep on wanting to write, ‘Saboteur!’ when thinking about this film. But alas, this is just about some dumb bum imposter played by Gary Sinise. Our boy Gary gets his star turn in this film that can be best summed up as a one-note story streeeetched veeerrrry looooong. May as well get into a short recap with that, because the entire film is about that one note: is Gary Sinise an imposter?
So Gary wakes up with his beautiful wife after a weekend camping trip relaxed and ready to show off a hot new weapon he designed for the big war with humanity’s intergalactic foes. Don’t worry about that camping trip. Sure there was a big ol’ fire but Gary is like “huh, what? Oh yeah we’re fine,” so the viewer can rest assured that the camping trip was no big deal and won’t play a role in the plot in the least. Just as he prepares for the big day Vincent D’Onofrio walks in and is like “Imposter!” and arrests him. He explains that the aliums have developed a new weapon and it’s real cool. Basically they send replicas of humans to Earth who don’t even know they’re replicas. They kill their doubles, assume their lives, wake up with all their memories, and go on with their lives… that is until they get switched on and assassinate someone. Sinise is like bullshit and springs free with his classic Gary Sinise strength. He’s able to contact his wife and attempts to get a body scan to prove he’s not an imposter, but is again chased off by D’Onofrio. He and his wife realize the key to all this is the camping trip (woah, what?) and so they head into the forest where D’Onofrio assures Sinise that he believes him. That’s because in the forest is an alien spaceship and inside is bum bum bum his wife’s body! (What a twist!) They kill the imposter wife but then find bum bum bum Gary Sinise’s hot bod in there too! (What a double twist!) He explodes. THE END.
There was a moment very early in the film (when they kept on droning on and on about the camping trip) that I thought, “wouldn’t it be funny if Sinise just turned out to be an imposter?” Like a whole movie set up around someone being like “I’m not an imposter!” but then he is. You’ve just watched an entire movie where the main character is an alien but doesn’t know it so it’s not even fun in an alien kind of way. And then they did it! It’s pretty dumb and makes the majority of the movie meaningless. If I rewatched it now Gary would be whining “but I love my wiiiife,” and I’d just shrug and be like ‘no you don’t cause you are just some alien drone so why should I listen to you? Sure you have all the memories of Gary Sinise. You’ve got those abs for days, for sure. I appreciate all that… but you’re also just gonna blow up and you’re not really Gary Sinise… no one is. Only Gary Sinise is. He’s a one of one.”
For a Hot Take Clam Bake I’m gonna come out and say it: the aliens’ plan was dumb and bad and failed. Sinise was supposed to blow up a giant weapon he designed and kill the leader of Earth (or something like that). Instead he blows up Vincent D’Onofrio in the middle of a razed forest. Guess what happens next? Big Gary’s weapon blows up the aliens. Because he’s got a big ol’ brain and knew how to kick their asses. Maybe the aliens should have just blown up the weapon when Fake Gary was hanging around the weapon all day. Nope. Let’s just blow up nothing cause we’re dumb. Dumb aliens. Dumb weapon. Dumb plan. You lose.
Hot Take Temperature: Day Old Wildfire. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Imposter? More like Low-cost-er! Amirite? Gary Sinese v. Vincent D’Onofrio babbbbby! YEAH! What? You aren’t jazzed for that CSI: NY vs. Law & Order: Criminal Intent clash? The Battle of the Second Spin-off Stars? This is huge! Let’s go!
Throughout the years we’ve established nice concise phrases for certain types of films. Our most internationally famous one is obviously Dog Poo In Our Face for those films that are so bad they make us irrationally angry. This film ain’t that. This film is the second-most-popular classic Nothing Film. It is a film you’ve seen one-thousand times which feels like no one remembers and if it never existed the world wouldn’t change even a little bit. This film is a Nothing Film.
Basically this film feels like a less well known Phillip K. Dick short story that was squashed between The Minority Report and We Can Remember It for You Wholesale so no one remembers it until someone was like “do we have any more Phillip K. Dick stories to adapt”, and someone opened wikipedia and was like “only one … it’s called Imposter?”
To be clear this is actually based on a Phillip K. Dick story, I’m not making that up. It was first published in the magazine Astounding in June 1953 and can be found in some of his collections. That being said ain’t no one running out of Phillip K. Dick short stories to adapt, there are a billion of them.
Oh the movie, I almost forgot (because it is a nothing film). It uh … well, it um … D’Onofrio is suitably crazy in this I suppose? The whole thing seems to take place at night. The ultimate twist is so obvious that they felt the need to make the twist even twistier … but even then it was really obvious, and they didn’t have the guts to change the actual ultimate twist enough for me to really care that I kind of got it wrong.
I guess what I’m getting at is that this is a poor man’s Minority Report, and even that isn’t really considered very good anymore, so what really does that make this? Bad, I suppose. It makes it a bad movie.
Obviously a great Future Setting (When?) for a film that is sorely lacking in any superlatives. Well except for one of the worst Worst Twists (How?) ever in that it was obvious from the beginning that you are following around an evil android who is going to blow everyone up at the end (and he does). It is closest to Bad I think, just a Nothing Movie.
Check out the Quiz for my sequel Impo2ter. You kind of know it would be stylized like that right? Cheerios,
Oh jeez, imagine this, I just got accused of being an alium spy and am to be killed immediately. No trial? No problem for this future hellscape! Well, good thing I escaped, although I did get bopped on the head by a guard and now can’t remember a thing (like whether I’m a spy or not …). Do you remember what happened in Imposter?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) It’s the future and the world is at war! With whom though?
2) And our hero is a heroic military weapons manufacturer … wait, that can’t be right (checks notes). Yeah, he’s a weapons manufacturer. Anyways, why did this heo join the military with only mass genocide of our enemies on his mind?
3) Well, boy is Vincent D’Ononfrio’s face red! Or, well, it will be once he realizes his terrible mistake in accusing this heroic hero of being a spy. But why does he think he’s a spy?
4) Yada yada yada, our boy is on the run and trying to prove that the spy is really the one armed man (or something like that, he’s a fugitive on the run). He gets some help from Mekhi Phifer. Why is he willing to help this spy, what is he getting in return?
5) Ah, well in the end who ends up being the imposter and spy?
Bonus Question: In the mid-credits sequence Sinese wakes up in a lab, strapped to a table. But how? And who else is there to greet him?
“You senseless idiot!” Patrick says in dismay. Kyle was their last chance to save the world. He had already come to the conclusion that the HoE dimension was so powerful that it would burn out any time machine that found its way there. Kyle’s story only confirmed it. Now they were all stuck here. “Well that’s OK, Patrick, it’s really not so bad here. Unexpectedly pleasant in fact,” Kyle says, sharing a sweet moment with his beloved Rachel. Rachel smiles back, but after a second her smile starts to waver and she begins to weep. Kyle is shocked. “It’s just so wonderful here. What if we go back and our family can’t…” Rachel’s voice breaks. Kyle reassures her that they don’t have to go anywhere, but Jamie and Patrick have a job to do. “We have to help them if we can. Isn’t that why we went back in the first place?” She nods and tells them about the Hallston Academy building. Kids come and go, real baseball games during the day, imaginary baseball games at night. “Classic high school stuff, go on,” Patrick encourages. But when Rachel picks up the kids at school she’s noticed another building. One down by the lake. No one ever comes. No one ever goes. “And armed guards are always nearby,” Rachel finishes, her voice now a whisper. But Kyle sadly shakes his head, “it’s been fifteen years, Rachel, I can know when you are holding back. You need to tell them.” She takes a deep breath. “There are two people I’ve seen come and go. I’m sorry I never told you, dear, but I didn’t want to spoil our dream. Those people were…” and suddenly she looks straight at Jamie and Patrick, “the bad movie twins!” Kyle turns to them, enraged. “Imposters!” That’s right! We are watching the classic *checks notes* Gary Sinise vehicle… wait, that can’t be right… alright, well the Gary Sinise sci-fi vehicle we all know and love. He’s an imposter… or is he? You better believe they’re gonna try to twist us up. Let’s go!
Impostor (2001) – BMeTric: 23.7; Notability: 67
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 25.6%; Notability: top 1.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 22.2%; Higher BMeT: Glitter, Jason X, Freddy Got Fingered, Driven, The Animal, Ghosts of Mars, Black Knight, Valentine, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Soul Survivors, Monkeybone, The Musketeer, Corky Romano, Scary Movie 2, The Wedding Planner, Bones, Summer Catch, The Order, Say It Isn’t So, The Wash, and 44 more; Higher Notability: Pearl Harbor, Monkeybone, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Hannibal; Lower RT: Texas Rangers, Soul Survivors, Glitter, Corky Romano, The Forsaken, Summer Catch, The Wash, Out Cold, Say It Isn’t So, Joe Dirt, Head Over Heels, Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, What’s the Worst That Could Happen?, Freddy Got Fingered, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Perfume, The Musketeer, Valentine, Double Take, Original Sin, and 33 more; Notes: I’m not surprised at how high the rating is here. I am shocked by how high the Notability. Jeez Louise! It is on Hannibal or Tomb Raider levels! That’s nuts.
Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Is Sinise an alien spy impersonating a scientist married to Stowe in 2079? The movie’s distributor apparently didn’t think anyone cared enough to find out, because this malnourished Philip K. Dick adaptation sat on the shelf for more than a year. Most interesting features are the near home appliances in the early scenes, which include a voice-activated wall-screen TV that shuts off on command. You should be so lucky when watching this movie at home.
(Wow! Harsh. I would have never expected this to get a BOMB from Leonard. It seems maybe light-fare or boring, but he’s given really terrible horror films 1.5 just being like “I didn’t vomit while watching this film which is a plus.” But this is malnourished? A BOMB it is I guess.)
(The trailer is very weird. It makes it look incredibly cheap and poorly put together. Which is maybe why Leonard gave it a BOMB I suppose.)
Directors – Gary Fleder – ( Known For: Runaway Jury; Homefront; Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead; The Express; Future BMT: Don’t Say a Word; BMT: Kiss the Girls; Impostor; Notes: Hmmm, he still does a lot of television (and maybe movies, although I’m skeptical his In Production work will be actually released in the end). In particular he did a Lincoln Rhyme television series which is basically the Bone Collector, which is rather intriguing … although me having never heard of it is probably a bad sign for its quality.)
Writers – Philip K. Dick – ( Known For: Blade Runner 2049; Blade Runner; Minority Report; Total Recall; The Adjustment Bureau; A Scanner Darkly; Radio Free Albemuth; Natural City; Morning Patrol; Barjo; Future BMT: Next; Screamers; BMT: Paycheck; Impostor; Notes: Probably a top ten most famous sci-fi writers ever. He won a Hugo Award for The Man in the High Castle, and was nominated for five Nebula Awards. Given that we’ve almost completed his BMT filmography with two films, his work tends to produce good films as well.)
Scott Rosenberg – ( Known For: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle; Jumanji: The Next Level; Con Air; High Fidelity; Beautiful Girls; Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead; Highway; Future BMT: Venom; Disturbing Behavior; BMT: Gone in 60 Seconds; Kangaroo Jack; Impostor; Notes: He mostly does blockbusters, and he did a lot of television from 2000-2015. Good friends with Fleder who he went to Boston University with. Somewhat notably was the “other person” involved in a bar brawl where Steve Buscemi was stabbed three times.)
Caroline Case – ( BMT: Impostor; Notes: Was a television writer on The Tom Show and The Army Show, but besides that she mostly did script and continuity work on Gary Fleder films. He also produced her documentary on William Goldman.)
Ehren Kruger – ( Known For: Top Gun: Maverick; The Ring; Ghost in the Shell; Scream 3; Dumbo; Arlington Road; New World Disorder; Future BMT: Transformers: Dark of the Moon; Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen; The Skeleton Key; The Brothers Grimm; Blood and Chocolate; BMT: Transformers: Age of Extinction; The Ring Two; Reindeer Games; Impostor; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Screenplay for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2010; and Nominee for Worst Screenplay in 2012 for Transformers: Dark of the Moon; and in 2015 for Transformers: Age of Extinction; Notes: The writer of the biggest movie of the year! He is a blockbuster machine, and that will likely continue to be the case given that Top Gun 2 is going to make more than a billion dollars.)
David Twohy – ( Known For: The Fugitive; Waterworld; Pitch Black; Riddick; G.I. Jane; A Perfect Getaway; The Arrival; Below; Warlock; Grand Tour: Disaster in Time; Arrival II; Future BMT: The Chronicles of Riddick; Warlock: The Armageddon; BMT: Critters 2; Terminal Velocity; Impostor; Notes: Wait they got the writer of the Fugitive to get involved with this? That’s nuts. He has a film coming out called Ice Moon Rising which seems insane.)
Actors – Shane Brolly – ( Known For: Spread; Room 6; Flypaper; Rennie’s Landing; Devil’s Highway; 48 Angels; Future BMT: Underworld; Underworld: Evolution; Underworld: Rise of the Lycans; BMT: Impostor; Notes: Wow, it’s been a while since we got someone who is definitely not a lead actor sneaking into a preview. I’m going to leave it. He wrote a book called “You’d Think There Would Be More Suicides Around Here”.)
Vincent D’Onofrio – ( Known For: Jurassic World; Full Metal Jacket; The Magnificent Seven; Sinister; The Unforgivable; The Eyes of Tammy Faye; Men in Black; Ed Wood; Adventures in Babysitting; JFK; The Cell; Escape Plan; The Judge; The Player; Mystic Pizza; Strange Days; Run All Night; The Salton Sea; Chained; Kill the Irishman; Future BMT: The Break-Up; The Thirteenth Floor; Dying Young; Feeling Minnesota; BMT: Death Wish; CHIPS; Rings; Impostor; Stuart Saves His Family; Notes: Somewhat notable now as Kingpin and being one of the rare examples of an actor crossing from the Netflix Marvel series (Daredevil) into the Disney canonical series (Hawkeye). He was nominated for an Emmy for Homicide: Life on the Street, and then spent a decade as the lead in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.)
Gary Sinise – ( Known For: Forrest Gump; The Green Mile; Apollo 13; Captain America: The Winter Soldier; The Quick and the Dead; Joe Bell; Of Mice and Men; Ransom; I Still Believe; Open Season; Snake Eyes; The Human Stain; Albino Alligator; The Big Bounce; A Midnight Clear; A Wedding; SGT. Will Gardner; Bruno; All the Rage; Future BMT: Mission to Mars; The Forgotten; Jack the Bear; BMT: Reindeer Games; Impostor; Notes: I’m willing to bet a huge number of people know his exclusively from Forrest Gump (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), but he is an extremely notable actor (from things as lauded as Of Mice and Men for example). He was nominated for two Emmys (and won one of them) for Truman and George Wallace as the titular characters in both. He was the lead in nearly 200 episodes of CSI: NY and for the single season of Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.)
(Horrible. It sat on the shelf for a year, probably because they didn’t know what to do with it or how to advertise it. I bet the $30 million figure it accurate given the behind the scenes stuff I saw, it seemed really expensive from a set perspective. But I’m sure they just dumped it with no advertising campaign at all as well.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 24% (23/96): With its low production value and uninspired direction, Impostor comes off as a mixture of The Fugitive and Blade Runner, only not as good or as involving.
(Yeah, it does seem like it is just a future Fugitive with less compelling leads. And if the trailer is to be believed it definitely looks cheap as well. So fair all around.)
Reviewer Highlight: Pushes the same old cliches in Blade Runner packaging. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
(I find this poster both nicely made and hilarious. Nicely made because the artistry of it is interesting, the color scheme is good, and it hits in a nice “classic poster” kind of way. Hilarious because of the tiny Gary Sinise running out of an explosion. If I wanted a funny poster based project to embark on it would be posters like this where an actor appears more than once. Double Sinise. Font is bad, which is a shame. B-.)
Tagline(s) – In the Future, not everyone is who they seem to be. (F)
(My God, unacceptable. Usually something that is total nonsense is at least fun cause it’s nonsense. This is boring nonsense. Booooo.)
Keyword(s) – dimension
Top 10: Sin City (2005), Spectre (2015), The Others (2001), Scream (1996), Equilibrium (2002), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Mist (2007), Death Proof (2007), 1408 (2007), Scary Movie (2000)
Future BMT: 86.6 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 82.8 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 77.5 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 77.0 Superhero Movie (2008), 70.1 Black Christmas (2006), 68.6 Pulse (2006), 66.9 The Crow: City of Angels (1996), 64.9 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 61.8 Cursed (2005), 59.0 Apollo 18 (2011)
BMT: Scary Movie V (2013), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994), Halloween II (2009), Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), My Boss’s Daughter (2003), Highlander: Endgame (2000), Dracula 2000 (2000), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998), Phantoms (1998), Boys and Girls (2000), Texas Rangers (2001), Reindeer Games (2000), Halloween (2007), Senseless (1998), Impostor (2001), Mindhunters (2004)
Best Options (future): 33.0 Fortress (1992), 23.7 Impostor (2001)
(The question kind of is whether we’ll ever watch a 2005 or 2006 film … Looking at the list the prognosis is negative. We just love the 90s and early 2000s so much! You might be shocked (shocked!) that we didn’t pick the Christopher Lambert future prison movie classic, Fortress, but no worries, that is next week.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 17) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Gary Sinise is No. 1 billed in Impostor and No. 2 billed in Reindeer Games, which also stars Ben Affleck (No. 1 billed) who is in Gigli (No. 1 billed) which also stars Al Pacino (No. 7 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (7 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 17. If we were to watch Pearl Harbor we can get the HoE Number down to 11.
Notes – Young Spencer Olham is played by Mac Sinise, Gary Sinise’s son.
The adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Impostor” was originally planned to be one segment (about forty minutes) of a three-part science fiction movie. The production company liked the early “dailies” so much, that the idea was fleshed out into a feature-length film. The other segments grew into the features Mimic (1997) and Alien Love Triangle (2008).
In the opening scene of the movie, footage of soldiers is taken from the 1997 film Starship Troopers (1997); and footage of a crater, with other explosions is taken from the film Armageddon.
A street scene is filmed in a courtyard of Cal Poly Pomona’s administration building, the same one used for Jude Law’s apartment building in Gattaca (1997). Several students and staff of Cal Poly Pomona were used as extras for this scene.
Spencer Olham is said to be “very good at integral and differential calculus.” This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical “Pirates of Penzance” from the famously silly patter-song “Modern Major General.” (The line from the song is, “I am very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of being animalculus…”)
The operating room set was also used in Logan’s Run.
Maya Olham watches a televised news report that refers to a Ballard space institute – a reference to J.G. Ballard, the British science fiction writer.
The helmets that security forces wears are also the helmets worn in Starship Troopers (1997).
The film takes place in 2079.
Originally intended to be Miramax’s big Christmas movie for 2001, the film got delayed to January just days before it was set to open due to last-minute edits on Kate & Leopold (2001), which forced that film to take this film’s original date.
In the not so distant past Senseless would have been prohibited from the BMT treatment. I distinctly remember watching this film when it came out. Probably perusing the aisles of Ye Olde Hollywood Video, Patrick and I saw the dope orange DVD case (VHS box? This landed right on the boundary) and were like “We gotta see the new David Spade joint, we loved him in PCU.” And boy would we have been right (because David Spade essentially plays the same character as he did in PCU). But even that vague recollection would have been enough for us to say, ‘No BMT Allowed!’ Good thing that rule is gonzo..
To recap, Marlon Wayans is a college student working numerous jobs to pay his way through school and support his mother and siblings. He has staked everything on getting a big junior analyst job, but with only one spot (and wealthy financier’s son, David Spade, in the competition) it would seem he’s out of luck. But oh ho ho, what’s this? An experimental drug that will enhance your senses? How fortunate for Wayans (and the audience, for surely hilarity will ensue). Soon he is hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and seeing his way into the lead (not to mention a new hot GF). Still worried about his chances, though, Wayans takes a double dose of the drug and hears, smells, tastes… you get it, right out of the competition again. Off the drug for good, Wayans studies his butt off for the final event and manages to win, but ultimately confesses that he got a leg up in the previous events. He loses the position, but the head of the company likes his spunk and gives him a job in the mail room anyway. Ultimately he gets the job and the girl. THE END.
From the description you’re probably like ‘sounds dumb, probably BMT will rake this film over the coals. Let me get my popcorn ready with my special popcorn spices. Hopefully I can find the special popcorn spices because I so rarely use them since they are special spices and not everyday spices. That would be expensive if I used my special popcorn spices for any old event. Better be special.’ But stop! Don’t pour all those special popcorn spices down your gullet just yet. That’s because (could it be?) maybe this film wasn’t so bad? I won’t go so far as to say that it was not so bad, not so bad, but there were a lot of pleasant things about it. Matthew Lillard was fun and sweet as Wayans’ BFF, the message of the film was good, and David Spade played his character as an aloof nemesis in a pleasing way. The biggest issue is a classic 90’s treatment of the 2D love interest and the fact that the premise of the film is complete nonsense. It’s like a child wrote up what they thought the process of getting an internship was like… why do they care how good Wayans is at hockey? What does that have to do with anything? Why would there be so many different events? It’s wild.
That gets me to my Hot Take Clam Bake… is this a better way for hiring? Should all talent searches be run this way? The one thing it certainly did was separate the wheat from the chaff. Who has time for a Billy Madison-esque academic decathlon to get a junior analyst position? People who are going to be great junior analysts, that’s who. And as a bonus, the competition is such a roller coaster of emotions that even those that dare to cheat the integrity of the decathlon are so physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually spent that they immediately confess and become a better person (and thus a better employee). Hot Take Temperature: Buffalo Wild Wings. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Senseless? More like … Senseless, but like, more pejorative. Remember the year 1998, when gas was 25 cents, living was easy, and Marlon Wayans was a star? Those were the days. Let’s go!
I’ve seen this film before, but the only thing I really remembered from it was that he takes too much of the drug and his senses go all crazy. That was it.
David Spade though is shockingly good. A really interesting character as well. Usually in a film like this his character would be an irredeemable piece of shit. Like the bad guy in Van Wilder. A guy who gleefully ruins the main character’s life (or tries to) because he’s rich and wants to (? That seems like the motivation sometimes). David Spade’s character might be rich, but he just kind of knows he’s the best. He just knows that it is very unlikely that Marlon Waynes will defeat him to get the internship. And so he ultimately is snarky but cordial to Waynes, because why not? Waynes really just doesn’t seem like a threat. It is an interestingly pleasant part of the film.
Fine, Spade humiliating Wayans at the frat is rough, but Wayans shouldn’t even have to try to be in a frat to get the internship in the first place.
The not so pleasant bits are things like the fact that Marlon Waynes definitely cheats on his girlfriend, and lacks any sort of genuine remorse about it, and ultimately she forgives him for basically no reason.
Lillard is a funny character, but feels out of place in the film. He appears to be there solely to make jokes about masturbation and to teach people what a Prince Albert piercing is.
Other than that the film is mostly notable for its ludicrous premise. An internship finally determined by a quiz show format oral exam which depends on you playing sports and being in a fraternity? Seems unlikely.
Some good Product Placement (What?) with Coca Cola products in general. And also a pretty rough Worst Twist (How?) in that I legitimately predicted that Waynes wouldn’t get the job and would instead get a job specifically in the mail room at the end, and then it happened. It was inevitable. The film is, again, closest to Good in that there is some pretty funny stuff in it in the end.
I’ll write about the sequel which will be called Senseless 2: Protectors Assemble! That’s right, Senseless is a true blue superhero now! Cheerios,
Oh man, get this, I was taking this experimental drug but then I took too much (like a goober!). Obviously the side effects caused me to fall down and bop my head. Now I can’t remember a thing! Do you remember what happened in Senseless?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) Well, in the beginning of the film we meet our hero. He has lot of jobs and lots of ways to get money. I count seven things.
2) Smythe-Bates Brokers prizes their junior analyst positions. But in particular they prize three specific things. What are they?
3) Protocol 563. What are the instructions? What are the consequences of overdosing?
4) After managing to get into the finals of the competition as an unprecedented sixth candidate, and getting into a frat, and becoming the star goalie of the hockey team, there is a final part of the competition. What is it?
5) Looking at that chart, what would the vice chair of the federal reserve do and why?
Bonus Question: Well well well, now Marlon Waynes is a true blue analyst on Wall Street. Good for him. In the mid-credits scene though he gets paid a visit by a mysterious, but familiar, stranger. Who?
Bad Movie Twins 