The crew of the Satellite of Love are back for another look at various blockbusters that littered our summer, covering twice as many films as the previous year. Unfortunately this means they're less detailed, but it's still a rousing bit of MST vs. Hollywood goodness. Behind the scenes clips provided some great fodder last year, but they're unfortunately dropped in favor of brief scenes from the films this year. Often it's too brief to be overly funny, but one can't fault them for not picking ripe material.
The X-Files (later riffed by Bill Corbett, Mary Jo Pehl at Rifftrax)
One of the most popular television shows of the '90's, The X-Files was about as mainstream as hard sci-fi ever got. This feature film takes place in between seasons five and six and sees FBI Agents Mulder and Scully reassigned but still swept up in the alien invasion case that made up the titular files of the series. I like the TV show, and I'd say this is the better of the two movies that were based on it. Though I haven't seen either in years, so don't quote me on that.
Clips of this movie feature Mulder mumbling to Agent Skinner and Mulder and Scully questioning kids on bikes. Riffing is steady, mostly playing up the drab and wooden nature of X-Files characters.
Ever After: A Cinderella Story
I have not seen this Drew Barrymore chick flick, which is a retelling of Cinderella from what I gather. It looks fine, if stuck in '90's kitsch and sap, though boys like me skipped it because it obviously had cooties.
Clips feature a discussion on Drew Barrymore's plain jane beauty with Anjelica Huston followed by Barrymore's arrival at the ball in her Tinkerbell cosplay. It would seem as melodramatic as the film looks that this might make great riffing fodder, though the mostly goofy riffing on these clips doesn't quite gel with it.
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
The seventh entry in the long-running slasher series retools it, bringing Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode character back from the off-screen-dead and makes her a teacher at a private school along with her son, who unfortunately resembles Josh Hartnett. Killer brother Michael Myers of course tracks her down and slaughters a bunch of teens as he tries to kill her for some reason. Still arguably the only other Halloween film aside from the original that somewhat comes close to being a good movie, the film is very much a take-it-or-leave-it slasher fare. It's not that special, but it does have a wildly fun one-on-one final act which has Curtis taking on her brother head-on.
The clips for this one have Curtis seducing her on-screen love interest while confessing who she really is to him while the second has her hunting down Myers. The riffing on the scenes is okay for the most part, but the big laugh for me was "Our family therapist says I have to hit you in the face with an ax!"
The Truman Show
Mike Nelson's favorite actor, Jim Carrey, stars as a man who doesn't know his life is a television show in an elaborate hoax designed to simulate an entire world around him. I haven't seen this movie in a good long while, and while I remember the movie being good (-ish), the premise is somewhat fantastical and hard to swallow. But suspend your disbelief and you might be into this artsy film, which showed Carrey's dramatic side after becoming famous for his physical comedy.
The clips see Carrey playing with a malfunction in the sets rain system and a second featuring him asking a girl on a date. The riffs feature Mike talking about Carrey's praised performance through gritted teeth and a fun gag of Carrey being rejected by the object of his desires.
Pi
An independent film by Darren Aronofski, Pi is a film about mathematics. Just what every crowd of teenagers wants to see in their blockbuster films nowadays! As someone who doesn't quite respond to the films of Aronofski, I haven't seen this film and am really not interested. It's a strange inclusion in this list of blockbusters however.
The sole clip features narration from the male lead listing three facts of some sort. I will say that while I don't quite understand the film's inclusion in this special, the independent flair makes it one of the more interesting segments. The unique cinematography gives them something new to work with than the point and shoot FX scenes of other blockbusters. Their added "facts" are quite hilarious.
Saving Private Ryan
Winning Steven Spielberg his second Oscar for Best Director, Saving Private Ryan features a group of soldiers sent into enemy territory to retrieve a single soldier, the last survivor of a group of brothers, to send him home to his family. Fueled by Spielberg sentimentality, Private Ryan owes a lot to an audience's response to it. I quite love Spielberg's work and the movie proves to be one of his great works for me.
Clips include Tom Hanks with a klutzy private (that sounded dirtier than I meant it to) and Hanks talking about why he doesn't question the mission to save Ryan. The riffing mostly goes for Jerry Lewis in the former, and good-natured ribbing on the latter (including a welcome name-drop for Bosom Buddies).
Small Soldiers
From Steven Spielberg to Joe Dante, this children's fantasy sees toys coming to life and declaring war on each other. I remember enjoying it as a kid, but haven't really bothered with it since. Small Soldiers seems to enjoy a cult following today, though I remember almost nothing about it. Apparently it had Phil Hartman, Kirsten Dunst, Kevin Dunn, David Cross, and Tommy Lee Jones in it. You'd think I'd remember a cast that awesome, but there you go.
Clips include Tommy Lee Jones's soldier toy calling his troops to attention and an alien doll being harassed by a cat ("An affectionate cat? This is science fiction!"). The clips are fairly uneventful and don't give a lot of riffing opportunity.
Probably the most poorly received film of the summer, Godzilla was a big budget Hollywood take on the famous Japanese Goliath. The film featured a giant mutated lizard rampaging around New York and laying eggs...and that's just Matthew Broderick's love interest! The movie is more watchable than it's reputation would lead you to believe, but it's a big, dumb movie about a big, dumb animal by Roland Emmerich, who likes to destroy things in big, dumb ways. If you like big and dumb you might have a big, dumb time. Classic Godzilla fans may want to veer away, since creative liberties are taken. They'd might have a better chance at enjoying Hollywood's second attempt at a Godzilla movie, directed by Gareth Edwards in 2014.
For whatever reason the folks at MST couldn't clear footage of Godzilla to be featured in this special, so Crow puts on a little puppet play reenacting the film. It's mildly amusing. Luckily more proper Godzilla riffs would be made down the line.
Deep Impact
The first of two 1998 films about a meteor threatening to wipe out all life on Earth, this one is a melodrama starring Morgan Freeman and Tea Leoni and was pretty much forgotten the minute it ended. I haven't seen the movie since it came out, but I thought it was the better of the two meteor films. I have no interest in revisiting it to see if I was wrong however, so take that for what you will.
The clips feature President Morgan Freeman questioning Tea Leoni about the crisis and a climactic scene featuring a falling meteor. The riffing on these clips isn't very strong.
Armageddon (riffed by Matthew J. Elliot at Rifftrax)
My personal pick for worst movie of 1998, Armageddon is that other killer meteor movie which gave us all the tell-tale signs that we would eventually endure the horror of Michael Bay's Transformers series and yet we didn't listen. No, instead we made it the biggest hit of the year because it featured a dreadful Aerosmith song we couldn't stop listening to for some reason.
This last batch of clips features Bruce Willis talking his drilling team into taking the mission and Ben Affleck romanticizing Liv Tyler to her father's screeching of "I MISS YOU BABY!" The riffing of small snippets of this dumb movie are quite strong and I laughed out loud many times.
Tom eases us out of this final special by pointing out the unlikelihood of a large meteor hitting the Earth just as one hurtles toward the Satellite. And as our favorite movie companions die a fiery death, we ponder another amusing half hour of blockbuster clips and lament that there would never be a third. These Blockbuster Reviews typically came out in September and MST aired it's final episode the following August. But maybe there never would have been another anyway, because there was no third award special in the meantime.
Not nearly as strong as the first Blockbuster review, this second is still a welcome addition to MST lore, with some fun riffs and silly interplay between Mike, Crow, and Servo. These specials will be missed, but maybe someday we might see something similar now that the series has been relaunched.
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