MegaFart

Ok, so fanboys and girls are always talking about how revisiting something from their childhood as an adult ruined the experience for them.

And I'm here to say that sometimes the movie in question is not ruined by seeing it again 30 years later but rather that when you were 30 years younger, you were as dumb as a bag of hammers and you just don't remember that. And sometimes it’s because that movie is just really really stupid.

And sometimes it’s both. Like this time.

In my case the movie in question is MegaForce. I had very fond memories of this movie or at least the fog of old age mixed with all the drinking I did in college certainly made me think of it that way.

This ad was in every freakin' comic book in 1982.

For years and years, I had tried unsuccessfully to find the film on DVD, I was confused why it had not been released like so many other 80’s gems…but much like a gem, this should have stayed buried.

Anyhoo, I finally found out that Apple was renting and selling it, I debated whether to buy it but cautiously rented it instead for $2.99 and I’m here to say that I spent $2.94 too much on that rental.

Hold on to your panties…here we go…

In a nutshell, it’s a film about an anti-terrorist team made up of volunteers from many countries who have the latest technology and weapons, in the form of laser shooting, missile equipped motorcycles and dune buggies (?) at least it must have seemed that way in the 80’s but remember, there was a lot more coke easily available then too so that’s probably not a coincidence.

The film opens with an intro paragraph telling us about MegaForce, a covert team so secret that everyone discusses it openly and almost everyone wears shoulder patches with “MF” on them. Their idea of camouflage is shiny silver and gold suits and even the pilots all wear MegaForce baseball hats.

It’s like the worst kept secret in history.

Then a title card that explains everything about what you are going to see in case there are people without learning disabilities in the audience.

Then these ominous words……Filmed in IntroVision. This was a process where actors could be matched up with a giant background photo in realtime, like rear projection and it looks amazing so long as what you were going for is a scene where it looks like actors are walking in front of a giant photo.

Let me try again…it is an absolutely flawless optical effect provided of course that your audience is made up of infants who cannot sit up, those who have just endured laser corrective surgery or any person over the age of 94.

You may have seen this dynamic technique before in The Fugitive with Harrison Ford where it appears that a giant train is crashing down behind him and he is about to be killed but actually looks more like ol' Han Solo is running in front of a blurry screen at a shitty drive in.

So a stuffy British guy and his second in command or maybe she is from another country altogether, it doesn’t really matter land at an airport and are driven for several hours to the middle of the desert and dropped off with their luggage. Guy drives away and then another guy shows up, this is a representative from MegaForce, code name: Dallas as played by Michael Beck from the so-goddam-awesome-it-hurts film The Warriors.

General Nigel “Whitey” Farnsworth Ascotshire Birmingham III and Major "Luscious Lips" Zara (the chick) are here to ask MegaForce to go into another country and “trick” General Duke Gurerra (as played by the always awesome and fellow Brooklyn Sicilian Henry Silva) into crossing over the border so they can arrest him. It’s not made clear what he has done wrong other than being abandoned by his government.

Technically that makes him a rebel leader and not a terrorist. More on that later.

But I digress…

Then they drive another few more hours until they get to another part of the desert where they get to see a demonstration of MegaForce’s awesome technical abilities in the form of motorcycles that have been outfitted with not only machine guns but rockets apparently in defiance of the laws of physics.

The first of many, many thumbs-ups.

All I can say, and this screenshot will back me up is that if we were ever invaded by small multi-colored balloons (perhaps from some sort of super-advanced, aggressive clown-based culture), these guys would be on it so fast, it would make your head spin.

Also, an aside, the bike dudes all have what looks like vacuum cleaner tubes coming out of their helmets that don't seem to connect to anything, I couldn’t figure it out. In some shots it looks like it's tucked into the back of the pants. At other times I wondered if it was connected to a bong so they could smoke up in between takes in an effort to keep making this film.

Anyway a bunch of explosions and a thumbs up later… the leader pulls up, this is Captain Brock AbsRipple TightBuns Awesome Coolstein Jr.

No seriously… it’s Ace Hunter, as played by the inestimable Barry Bostwick who I believe must have been caught with a sheep or perhaps even a donkey to have been forced to make this movie.

As you can tell from this screenshot, he is simply the most scrumptious thing even placed on celluloid and that thin bandanna? Super Duper Macho with just a hint of gay.

But because Hollywood is worried that being gay or even the appearance of being gay is contagious, they sought to clear that up and make sure all the red-blooded American watchers of this masterpiece don't start to question their own sexuality while sitting in the darkened theater…so as soon as Hunter sees Major Zara, he begins to put the moves on her. 

He gives her these looks that are supposed to make us think he can make her panties fall off simply by winking at her but he actually comes across like a guy in a van outside a schoolyard that you would call 911 on.

All of the outfits are super tight, they look like the unholy love child of Naugahyde, saran wrap with a touch of whatever helium balloons are made of. Everything is so tight you can tell if the guys are circumcised. Not that you were interested. Fun fact, the film had no costume designer so instead Mattel, the toy company, designed the outfits which explains why everyone looks like a participant in a deranged life-size version of a Barbie and Ken Orgy.

No, I don't know what the buttons on their chests are for, yet another mystery.

Now we meet the scientist who created all the awesome technology the team uses, we are supposed to think he is a genius because that fact is mentioned 3 or 4 times in less than 60 seconds, also he is wearing glasses that are so large they are just shy of those novelty shades you get at a low-rent carnival.

They also make him look an awful lot like fashion designer Iris Apfel…see below for evidence of this claim…

The scientist, I believe they call him Eggy, get it? cause his name is Professor Eggstrom and also he is an egghead….ugh. Anyway, the scientist cryptically tells Hunter he has added a special feature to his motorcycle, he has to push 2 buttons or flip a switch or whatever to activate it. The audience isn’t told anything more, it's very cryptic.

Hey, look, an ascot. 

This is what's known as foreshadowing, you may have learned it in junior high school…or if you were a fan of this movie, maybe you didn’t get that far in your schooling, no matter, it will become apparent at the denouement.

The scene, however has the best joke of the film:

Dallas: “Well, here comes The Egg and that's no yolk”.

Professor Eggstrom: “Dallas, when a person doesn’t have less on, they have”?

Dallas: “moron”.

Professor Eggstrom: “exactly”

Dallas: looks confused.

Actually this was what my face looked like for the better part of this film.

Also if I may...if the writers had been really paying attention, Professor Eggstrom could have said "eggsactly" instead of "exactly". Amirite?

Moving on...Dallas worried me quite a bit, he was kind of a Texas, red-neck, dim bulb but he had access to tremendous amounts of firepower… seemed sort of frightening.

We cut to a tour of the base, mostly done with rear projection of a tiny model. Hunter talks about all sorts of statistics, the size of the base, the number of personnel, how great his beard and bandana combo is, how big his wang is…well maybe not that last one but I get the feeling he would have if they had let him.

Then we cut to the room that Major Zara is staying in, it looks like the fevered dream of a Barbie DreamHouse designer and that is no coincidence, see comment above about the costumes.

Hunter shows up wearing some sort of wacky open flap man-blouse which of course as been accented by yet another freakin ascot.

Just look at him, isnt he epic?

Throughout these scenes I was reminded that Hal Needham (the director) really should stick to his original job as a stuntman because at times it appeared that he had no concept of where to place the camera, what distance to shoot from, how to cut between people speaking, when to pull back etc.

It often looked as if they filmed everyone separately on different days of the week and then cut the scene together. Either way it doesn’t affect the film in any way so no worries there.

Next Hunter and Dallas go over their master plan to attack the vile General Duke Gurerra using a table apparently designed by the makers of LiteBrite…it’s very pretty. Hunter makes it clear that the entire attack will take no more than 4 minutes, this will be relevant later on.

At the end of this super elaborate plan (in which I'm convinced that Barry Bostwick was reading off cue cards as I got lost 3 or 4 times), Dallas wants to show further proof of MegaForce’s impressive technical prowess.

On the LiteBrite table, he plays a video of an animated drunk pig which he laughs at uncontrollably and makes everyone else in the room question whether or not Dallas’s parents were in fact related by blood.

Now it's time for Major Zara to point out that despite the fact that she clearly has spectacular breasts, she is as capable as any man in battle and demands to be included in the attack plan. Now this makes no sense either, she is supposed to be a military leader and she can’t understand why inserting a new person into a team of soldiers who have trained together for years would be a bad idea but we must move on as all that poor dialogue was just a setup for the next few scenes…

They go skydiving, now I’m not much of a sports person in any way but skydiving isn’t so much a sport or technique as it is just plain falling so I don't know what this is supposed to prove to Ace “Turgid Johnson” Hunter.

We cut from real skydivers to the actors who have clearly been suspended from wires. I mean this couldn’t have looked real even in 1982. Maybe the film was intended to be watched by with people with cataracts or perhaps a bag on their head.

The scene carries on for a few minutes and I was actually surprised that when the chutes opened that they didn't have the words Member of International Covert Operations Team MegaForce written on them in giant letters.

Then it’s on to the tank simulator where Major Zara sits in front of a giant screen and shoots at tanks, sort of like the arcade game Battlezone you may have played when you were younger but somehow more stupid looking.

Stupid looking until the lights come back on and we see what Mattel hath wrought yet again. Major Zara’s jumpsuit is open almost to her belly button so Hunter can be shown staring at her cleavage that has been accented by you guessed it, a fuckin ascot.  

It’s almost like a truck filled with ascots overturned just outside the studio as they started filming and they were obligated to use them all.

Hunter is wearing the same outfit the Bee Gee’s wore in 1978 but dont let the candy wrapper fool you, he is definitely heterosexual.

Simply epic.

The next day the planes are leaving and as per Hollywood trope, she rushes up to kiss Hunter for “good luck” Hunter leaps onto the plane with the grace of a female gazelle only somehow more effeminate. He gives yet another thumbs up.

Just look at that ass...it's majestic.

He says "let's meet in London after the mission".

She says "Are you sure your boyfriend won't mind"?

I don't know what the fuck was going on with this either, lots of thumbs up, men shaking hands, grasping wrists, sharing knowing glances, hugging, squeezing, patting each other on the back, it seemed like these guys had spent too much time at the underground base without any women, if you get my drift.

We cut to the Major waving at the plane looking for all the world like a deranged clown all the while ignoring that these particular cargo planes clearly only have windows in the front so no one inside the plane has any clue that she is doing anything.

It's still very touching, I wiped a tear.

Now a flying at night montage filmed apparently from the bottom of a deep well with tar smeared over the camera lens. It might be planes in the sky, it might be a guy in his closet filming while making “Brmmmmmmm” sounds. Who knows.

Yep, looked just like this, only somehow darker.

As they fly, Dallas reminds Hunter of a great quote about women he once told him:

"You love 'em in blue and you love them in red. But most of all you love them in blue."

Don’t panic, the sound you hear coming from your skull is your brain trying to emergency evacuate thru your nostrils.

I dont know what it means either, it sounds like one of those stupid almost-wise sounding platitudes you might hear coming from Gwenyth Paltrow lately.

So now we are over the drop zone and for the next 2 minutes we will watch footage of cars, dune buggies, trucks, men and equipment jumping and driving out of the back of the plane while in mid-flight only to parachute safely (unfortunately) to the ground. There are at most 4 shots in this montage but they run them over and over so that if you have a very small brain you will believe you are watching a massive attack force being deployed.

This is a picture of hundreds of parachutes opening at night...you'll have to trust me.

Intercut with all that is yet more douchebags giving the thumbs up, more slapping each other on the back, more handshakes etc and switches being flipped, have I mentioned that? My lord. By my conservative estimate, no less than 384 switches are flipped both on and (i can't stress this enough) off during this film.

They flip them up and down and then again and lights come on and go off and then they flip more switches and then after that they flip more of them and then a few more switches get flipped and towards the end a few switches even get flipped.

Also, some switches were flipped.

It’s utterly mind numbing.

I was just struck by a very important and somewhat relevant thought, this may be the first time i can recall where the movie poster is better than the movie...

I digress again.

So as the scene starts a digital clock shows up in the lower right-hand corner to show us that this battle will only take 4 minutes. I don’t know why that's big deal but we are clearly supposed to be impressed by this fact.

Anyway now the battle begins, it is almost completely one-sided, MegaForce rides into General Duke Gurerra's camp in the dead of night and literally shoot the shit out of everything in sight. They use rockets and grenades and missiles and machines guns and lasers and just destroy everything. You see dune buggies race up and down the same street 4 or 5 times, motorcycles randomly launching into the air and jumping over tanks, lasers flashing and despite all the fire and lasers, somehow it's all very dark and muddy and blurry, it's like watching a movie while trapped inside large piece of luggage full of oatmeal without your glasses.

Not a single person dies, I shit you not, no one dies in this movie. Hal Needham the director was quoted as saying:

“Although there's a lot of action, you don't see anyone get killed. I think people are beginning to get sick of that kind of thing. What we've tried to do here is make an entertaining film with some believable heroes the public can cheer for.”

There are so many things wrong with that quote that I must move on before I jam a pencil into my cornea.

Then they all race out of town, a job well done. 

Except if you actually pay attention during the movie you realize that General Duke Gurerra is a rebel who was abandoned by his own government and is seeking to get control away from them before the country is ruined.

So in a nutshell MegaForce is actually a terrorist group illegally in a sovereign nation attacking and blowing up everything in sight. Its' like if North Korea invaded downtown Minneapolis, blew up the Dairy Queen and the local Jiffy Lube and then went home to get their medals.

Moving on…the General, hoping to keep tabs on MegaForce sends his trusted sidekick, (a man so stupid he could only aspire to be in a Three Stooges film), after them in a motorcycle and sidecar combo that appears imported from a World War II museum.

And somehow despite all of MegaForce's amazing technology (and abundance of switches of course) they are unable to realize that they are being followed thru the dead of night in a desert by a motorcycle so loud that the driver wouldn’t know if a bomb went off 3 feet way from him.

We cut to the next day where the MegaForcians are gassing up at a temporary fueling station. Their plan is to await the return of their cargo planes so they can get back to the USA, land of high-fives, ass slappin' and Dairy Queen.

And now the exciting “twist”. That’s right, M. Night Shyamalan didn't invent it you know…

A helicopter arrives and out pops General Duke Gurerra, that right..the”bad guy” himself  shows up and right in the middle of their secret camp.

So what happens? Do they open fire on him, tackle him to the ground? Nope! Ace walks up and gives him a big hug.

Yes, you and I have been duped, it seems that the General is actually good friends with Ace, they trained together, fought together, chased dudes together…well probably not that last one, but you know with all the ass grabbing, winking and hugging, I started to wonder.

Duke lets (the just arrived) stuffy British dude (complete with ascot, of course) explain that due to changes in the political climate (literally overnight it would seem), MegaForce has been classified as an invading army, the British Fop who hired him can no longer help the team escape the country, Major “Breasts” Zara can’t do anything possibly because she is out ascot shopping and the team must turn to Ace for a solution.

British dude say " I guess dat's yo ass".

Bandana dude says "Why you gotta play me like that"?

Ace must come up with an escape plan to get these terribly studly, super-macho, thumbs up wrangling, ass slapping, constantly winking (but not gay in any way) warriors to their planes and escape before the General’s tank forces destroy them all.

 Again with this?

And let me tell you what a great plan it is. While the original plan as outlined by Ace required 80 lines of dialogue, the use of a 12 foot LiteBrite table and about 8 minutes of screen time, this one is super simple. Everyone will simply ride down a hill the General’s forces are in front of, drive past all the tanks and climb aboard their plane which is sitting on the runway.

I think General Patton used this very same masterful stroke in Normandy in “44.

So now it's time for another montage of rockets being checked, bullets being loaded, lasers charging up and of course 337 switches being flipped on and I cannot stress this enough, also off.

So the MegaForcites turn on their electric engines so they can sneak down the mountain and then once again starting shooting at everything in sight. Cars are flipping over, bikes are flying thru the air even though all the terrain is completely flat, there's more lasers, people are fucking high giving each other and giving the thumbs-up as they ride, rockets launching, switches being flipped, missiles going every which-a-way, ascots a waving and of course not a single fatality to be seen.

Yeah! Flip those switches, ya godamned bastards.

For some reason at this point, all the motorcycles starting spewing colored smoke to blind the tank army, why they didn't do this as soon as they got off the hill is beyond me, it would have been a very effective way of keeping the tank gunners and soldiers from seeing them until they were safely on their way.

But I guess then you wouldn't see all the lasers, machine guns rockets and switch-flipping that has become in my mind, the very raison d’être of this film. 

By this point everyone is at the plane and ready to go…all except Ace Hunter, he has fallen off his motorcycle and now is using this opportunity to find the very tank General Duke Gurerra is inside of, knock on the hatch so he can tell his friend “The Good Guys Always Win” and then he forces a very large cigar into the Generals mouth.

And if that isn’t subtle, I don’t know what is.

Ace jumps on his bike and races off but it’s too late, the plane is already lifting off the ground, HOW WILL HE DO IT!?

Well I’ll tell you exactly how "he do it", he thinks back to what Professor Engstrom told him about the red buttons on his handlebars, he pushes them and a pair of tiny wings drop down from the sides of his motorcycle and he launches into the air. The least aerodynamic thing on the planet now that Chris Farley is dead and somehow it’s flying.

SAY WHAT ?!!!!

The men are all watching from the back of the plane, gritting their teeth and praying this wild, insane, crazy gambit works out.

I swear this guy was crying...and I know how he feels.

It isn’t possible for this scene to be dumber…oh wait it is... Ace decides to show off and spits in the face of gravity by doing a 360 spin on the bike just before he lands it in the cargo bay to the cheers of his men, many high fives, hand grips, ass slaps, thumbs up, hugs, deep kisses etc...

Even Duke can't believe it.

I don't think these effects could be any more "special".

And then they are on their way to London so he can have amazing feather-hair, robins-egg blue bandana sex with Major Zara and her spectacular breasts.

Jesus, take the wheel.

Fun Trivia Fact: MegaForce is one of the films that have a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com, joining such cinematic masterpieces as: The Dorm That Dripped Blood, Sex Lives of the Potato Men, Midgets vs. Mascots, Alien from L.A., Plump Friction, Evan and Perry Go Large. and of course the amazing Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back.

Fun Tricia Fact Two: This film was nominated for three Razzie Awards, Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor (Michael Beck).