Suburban Commando |
  • USA • 1991 • 90m •   • Directed by: Burt Kennedy. • Starring: Hulk Hogan, Christopher Lloyd, Shelley Duvall, Larry Miller, William Ball, Jo Ann Dearing, Jack Elam, Roy Dotrice, Tony Longo, Michael Faustino, Mark Calaway, Laura Mooney, Dennis Burkley. • Music by: David Michael Frank.      Shep Ramsey is an interstellar hero, righting wrongs, etc. His ship is damaged after a fight with an interstellar nasty and he must hide out on Earth until it can recharge. He leaves his power suit at home, but still finds himself unable to allow wrongs to go unrighted and so mixes it up with bad drivers, offensive paperboys, muggers and the like. Then the family he's staying with finds his power suit and the father tries it on.
|
Trailers:
| Length: | Languages: | Subtitles: |
Review:
Not a lot to say, it's sort of a mix of both alien visitation sci-fi and buddy buddycop genre that were both subgenres running on high altitude back in the 80's. It's not really a new idea it's been done before in the past and there are plenty of better ones for the record but this one I thought was pretty good if not great. The music is pretty good there is a memorable song or two. The characters are solid from Shep Ramsey whom is sort of the real straight man in the film. He's sorts of like a Super Saiyan from Dragon Ball Z as he just has super strength. Hogan, I thought did a good job as an alien put of his element. I really like how he reacts to the world around him which makes sense since he's an alien he wouldn't understand our culture or customs. Though his reactions are understandable, I'm sure whenever we walked the street one day we saw something strange and thought what the heck.
Though I really like the supporting actors even more, from Shelley Duvall as Jenny Wilcox whom is a wife of Christopher Lloyd's character. She's funny as she's kind of flighty but positive and open to a lot of things she's not afraid to try out. Christopher Lloyd one of my favorite actors is great as Charlie Wilcox whom is a sympathetic character as he's an overly busy and stressed guy that unfortunately has a confidence problem, he is just taking crap from work but also outside of work, however he is ambitious he wants things to be better for his family but most of all his own life but he just needs the right amount of confidence to get it.
I really like the back and forth between between both Charlie and Shep they play off each other well, like any buddy comedy. Shep you can say is the confidence boost he very much needs. It's funny how he reacts toward some of the unintentional trouble Shep brings to his life, or even slowly discovering Shep is an alien. Even like how he's reacts about the matter which feels like how any normal person would react and it's funny as Charlie is curous about some of the technology Shep has and tries it out much like how any kid that sees a new toy and wants to play with it.
But despite all the trouble you see slowly but surely Shep really begins to care for the Wilcox family. He really looks out for each of them especially Charlie. Charlie despite the amount of stress he accumulates from Shep, that starts to melt away as he appreciates even admires most of what Shep does for him and of course we see Charlie do that in return for him which makes him become slowly empowered.
The comedy is good, though another bad thing about the film is not all the comedy hits there are a few really lame jokes here and there but that's common in most comedies, it's really the hits that count and this film has enough of them.
There are some really funny scenes like Cheb playing a video game mistakenly thinking it's life and death situation, though what really makes it funny is the fact the actors are pretending it's some space battle video game when it's really the arcade game "After Burner" which I always found strange; they probably couldn't afford to make a fake video game cabinet let alone nonexistent video game. Throwing back a paper at an annoying paperboy and what he says afterward. Or even a blackly funny joke when he pulls a combat knife out toward a mail man he mistakenly thinks is a threat, yeah if that was a disgruntled postal worker that would be understandable. Another is when Charlie dons Sheps armor and tries to kick some ass with it though not that well.
The action is decent from the action in the beginning, the fight at the bank with the two robbers armed with he freeze gun which leads to one of the best lines in the film "Antifreeze!". To a good fight between two space bounty hunters which to me is the best one as it' almost like a live action Shonen anime battle and both bounty hunters are wrestlers also. One of them is Terry Hogan's longtime friend Ed Leslie whom is known as Brutus Beefcake Most notably because one of the bounty hunters is WWE wrestler "The Undertaker" which is cool since he's my favorite one in that series. There is also this fight with the evil alien general whom turns into a Zoinoid like creature.
Though I'll admit I think that's the only real bad thing about the film there really isn't enough action, the film might have benefited more if maybe aren't the second and third half we saw both Shep and Charlie having to stop an alien invasion from the evil alien empire Shep was fighting earlier. We'd get to see Shep put that gear on once more as well as Charlie using most of the equipment and fighting them off together. Personally that was what I was kind of looking forward to in the movie and I was mildly disappointed that it didn't happen, I really wanted to see them use that cool equipment more in the film. It does get used in the film but very little; but that's probably because this film was more men to be a comedy than action so oh well.
Overall the film is no sci-fi classic but it's a film that is plain fun. If your interested in either Hulk Hogan or Christopher Lloyd, or just are a causal sci-fi or comedy fan looking for another sci-fi comedy, like any suburb ventured it's worth a drive by.
Review by hellraiser7 from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database