Genre: Action
Director: Aaron Lipstadt
Starring: Darrell Larson, John Stockwell, Kim Cattrall, Rae Dawn Chong, Dean Devlin, James Earl Jones
MST Season: 4
The Movie
Some dude leaves a perfectly good naked chick in the post-apocalypse so he can join the LA Clippers…er I mean legendary motorcycle gang called the Clippers. Joining the gang, the Clippers wage war on an evil corporation’s evil scheme to rebuild the world…because civilization is evil. We’re much happier living in a deserted wasteland and killing each other.
So, basically the Resident Evil film series, only smarter.
Melodramatic to a fault, this piece of dystopian garbage doesn’t have a plot worth investing in (like most dystopian garbage, to be honest). So instead it compensates by haphazardly trying to check off a list of the bare necessities to get a tween audience to have some small sliver of desire to watch it (again, like most dystopian garbage). City Limits doesn’t have an A-list production budget to pay much of its promises off, so we’re left with what smells like a Cannon Films version of the latest young adult novel flavor of the week. The sad thing is that most of those dystopian stories are better conceived than City Limits, which doesn’t even have an interesting concept half-baked into it, like oh say Divergent or the like.
There are a few stars, with James Earl Jones of Star Wars/Lion King/“This is CNN” fame being the biggie. Kim Cattrall is also here, many years prior to her major claim to fame of Sex and the City (which incidentally was even a ways after this MST episode was filmed). Rae Dawn Chong went on to do Commando and The Color Purple (the former deserved an Oscar nomination just as much as the latter). And while he’s hardly a star, Dean Devlin went on to be a writer and producer of such movies as Universal Soldier, Stargate, and Independence Day. Who’d have thought City Limits would be the least embarrassing thing on his resume? I kid, I kid. I like Stargate as much as the next guy.
The Episode
“Oh! Austin City Limits!”
City Limits gets a lot of hard knocks from the MST community, but I’ve always enjoyed it. The doofy movie is a pretty funny slice of cheese by itself, which helps. The riffing never really finds much of a rhythm with the movie, which is probably why it rubs a lot of people the wrong way. However a lot of what Joel and the bots throw at it is pretty funny, just lightweight, and combined with the unintentional laughs of the film I have to declare the theater segments a lot of fun.
Poopie!: Joel tries his best to cover up the film’s nudity with an umbrella, but as he opens it he misses his mark and we get a great big gander at some female booty!
Host segments are just as much slightness as the theater segments. There’s a random Captain Kangaroo segment, Crow has an off-key song about Kim Cattrall, while two segments are spent coming up with phony superhero names. The Invention Exchange features variations on Mr. Potato Head and some pop star Tupperware featuring Morrissey!
It’s no masterpiece, but every time the credits roll and I hear that “BLEH BLEH BLEH!” and listen to Joel and the bots rap to it I find myself always feeling that I’ve had a great time during the last ninety minutes. I say give this one a chance. It may surprise you.
Good
The DVD
City Limits rode onto DVD with Shout Factory's Volume XXXVI box set. Audio and video were swell, while special features kick off with an interview with actress Rae Dawn Chong, who reflects on her career all the way back to Quest for Fire. Incidentally she considered City Limits a better role for her because she actually had dialogue, though she confessed she hadn't seen the final film until the Mystery Science Theater episode (and she loved it). She also reflects on James Earl Jones' penis, for those curious. There's also a trailer for the film.
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