ELIMINATORS was better than I thought it would be. It's a pretty solid B movie- the kind I would have rented on VHS at the local video store because of the box art, or the kind I would have watched on late night or weekend afternoon cable TV.
The film has a plane crash, an evil scientist with a lair deep in the Mexican jungle, a cyborg (Mandroid, to be specific!), Roman centurions, a well-intentioned-but-misguided Japanese scientist, a beautiful female scientist that specializes in robotic technology, a grizzled riverboat captain, a riverboat chase and firefight, a small flying robot, a ninja (the son of the Japanese scientist lol), cavemen, armored 3-wheeled motorcycles, and time travel. It's like a box of tropes and character stereotypes were tossed in a box, and picked at random.
If you can get past the silliness it's actually not that bad, and a lot of fun. The film is 96min, which feels like the perfect amount of time. The pace is good, and it managed to keep my attention. All the elements in the story pull together, and actually feel justified (though their use is often humorous). I found myself saying, "Sure, why not?" whenever something new (like a ninja or cavemen appearing in the middle of the Mexican jungle) would happen.
The special effects are pure 80s. If you like explosions and big firefights where people rarely get hit, this film is for you. There are lasers, rockets, machine guns, electrified force fields and beams of energy. There's one scene where the film pays homage with an explosion to a Sean Connery-era James Bond film.
From the trailer I thought the Mandroid involved some stop motion, but that wasn't the case. He's wardrobe and make-up, with this pretty cool 'mobile unit' he attaches to that has treads like the bottom of a tank. It's only used for part of the film.
The soundtrack is good. Standard 80s, nothing exceptional.
According to IMDB this was filmed in Spain. There are some visually-appealing outdoor shots with mountains, rivers and valleys, especially during the riverboat chase.
On a personal note, I *LOVED*LOVED*LOVED* seeing actress Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION) in this. Her acting here isn't Shakespeare, but it's fun seeing her in something other than TREK. For me she is much beloved.
Finally, this film seems to have a lot of love from fans on the internet, and I understand why. It's fun trash. It does what's asked of it. It's entertaining.
YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE was slightly different than I expected. The first 2/3 of this film is a fantasy/ caveman-era action film. Then it turns sci fi. There is not an intermingling of eras of technology.
It's also visually very derivative. The entire movie I kept being reminded of other films that it seemed to copy, or at the very least sought to emulate.
There are two dinosaur scenes that feel like ONE MILLION YEARS BC, and much of the wardrobe seems to mimic that film. A third scene where he shoots down a giant flying bird with a bow and arrow, then uses the carcass as a glider stands in a class of ridiculousness all its own.
Early in the film there's a raid by cavemen on a homosapien village that reminded me of QUEST FOR FIRE and THE BEASTMASTER. Then YOR's roving adventure begins.
There's some swordplay that looks like it's attempting CONAN THE BARBARIAN, but comes off more like DEATHSTALKER.
Once the science fiction begins we're in STARCRASH and FLASH GORDON territory. Again, the quality of the costumes and props are on a similar level.
Overall the story is pretty weak, though not too convoluted. The location shots are actually pretty good, including exceptional opening scenes filmed in the otherworldly rock formations of Cappadocia, Turkey. A then-modern power plant appears to be the location of the sci fi scenes.
I thought YOR had an inconsistent soundtrack that seemed to disappear at times, with one or two anthemic tunes that feel like they're modeled on the soundtrack for FLASH GORDON.
Something cool I learned about YOR while researching my review: it's based on an Argentinian comic book from 1974 named HENGA, EL CAZADOR. It appeared in the long-running anthology comic SKORPIO.
Finally, if you're going to enjoy this film you're going to have to get past YOR's ridiculous blown-out wig. That first barrier might be too insurmountable for some to enjoy this film.
I don't regret having watched it. For me there was enough here to keep my attention. It is cheesy with a capital C, but that's what I expected. Nothing earth shattering. I enjoy the look of movies filmed outside of the United States, and I'm currently going through a trash Italian-cinema phase, so this came at the right time for me.
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In closing I'll say I was looking for 1980s VHS-store low-budget sci fi/ fantasy action, and these films got the job done. It's an era that relied on artistry, make-up, costumes, props, locations, camera angles, artwork, soundtracks and special effects to sell a film. These days CGI and computers have supplanted so much of all this, and appear to have made many of these areas irrelevant. It can be nice to take a trip down memory lane to this iconic, bygone era in filmmaking.
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