Thurs. the Looking Glass: ELIMINATORS (1986), THE TIME GUARDIAN (1987), Long ago... before CGI

1986 - ***

"There's no gold, this is some kind of science fiction thing, isn't it?" 

This question asked by ELIMINATOR's Handiana Jonesolo river guide, explains in a snap the magic of crappy 80s sci fi movies: if the cheap 'science fiction thing' masquerades as gold, well we love it for trying like we love our kid's school play. We can enjoy spotting all the 'influences' on the sci fi thing's sleeve, those footsteps so eagerly tread in--as if a son following his ALIEN-TERMINATOR-STAR WARS-ROBOCOP dad's overflowing pocket change-sprinkled tracks-- if in addition to the look and plot elements of those movies they add engaging characters, dialogue that's witty and wry (rather than winky-leery and slapstick-spastic), strong female leads who aren't just eye candy, imaginative special effects that aren't CGI, bad cops and stingy bartenders getting their idiocy thrust up their noses like yakuza chopsticks, and good 80s synthesizer music instead of just half-heartedly coasting on John Williams-ish library rips.

And lo, here is a 1986 science fiction adventure bullseye in the above target criteria. It's a CROCODILE DUNDEE OF THE LOST ROBOCOP TERMINATOR CLASHING WITH TITANS, with Denise Crosby (PET SEMATARY) as a foxy robotics engineer recruited by 'Mandroid' (Patrick Reynolds, of the R.J. Reynolds clan) an amnesiac Robo-Lancelot with cool weapon arms and an attachable half-track who wants her help destroying the rogue scientist everyone thought was dead, who bootlegged her designs, the rogue!  Turns out MANDROID was sent back in time by this evil guy to kill a bunch of Roman soldiers. If he could only remember!

Rounding out the team is the above-quoted charter boat captain of African Queen / Millennium Falcon-style shabbiness, Harry Fontana (Andrew Prine), who has a great gift for delivering meta commentaries without breaking the narrative flow: "we got cave men, we got robots, we got kung fu." His face oscillates between resembling David Carradine, Joel McRae, and Kevin Sorbo in a pleasing, hallucinatory way. And he's crafty enough to reduce his rival riverboat captains to a bunch of smoldering wrecks along the shore as he's pursued by both an Emma Small-style rival and the evil mastermind's sassy henchmen. In the eleventh hour, a skilled martial artist (Conan Lee!) joins the band and there's even a reasonably tolerable cute little purse-held R2/Bobo the Owl. The scenes where he's allegedly floating above/behind the shoulder of the Mandroid are pretty endearing... maybe not in the way they intended.

Alas, this being kid-friendly there's some bad faith nonlethal assurance: "You didn't have to blow them up!" - "They only jumped over the side!" - Oy Vey.. here we go again, safety-first Sarah Connor. As expected the tone rocks unevenly but if you're like me you didn't come to ELIMINATORS for even tone. You came to laugh, and relax and even fall asleep while enjoying a narrative with no CGI, fake breasts, rape or daughter abduction. Amem... rest easy gentle robocough, I mean Mandroid.

THE TIME GUARDIAN

1987 - **1/4

ELIMINATORS only looks Australian TIME GUARDIAN is. And yet, the cast includes Carrie Fisher. Why? Is this her cocaine binge era? She seems to be hiding in the opening action scenes many dark patches, like she doesn't want her mom to see her doing such tripe. But she's Oscar calibre compared to Dean Stockwell as the elected official leader of a time-traveling electric city that's being pursued across time's spectrum by a group of evil "half machine, half human" underground combinations of Cylons and Shogun Warriors.

Remember them? I forgot all about them until this movie I'm still not sure why Transformers wasn't sued by the Shogun clan, or the Micronauts. 

Anyway, the big time-traveling city is coming--where else?--to the outback in present day to duke it out with these monsters once and for all. Carrie Fisher and the titular hero, Ballard (Tom Burlinson) a frowny-faced warrior who goes by his own code and all that--are rocketed ahead as scouts for the new location where she winds up wounded, and is thus allowed her to sit most of the movie while he tussles with paranoid local cops and falls for a hottie anthropologist who's been examining ancient cave drawings that represent the very same domed city on its way. They've been here before, and the local Aboriginals remember them, and the welcome Carrie and Ballard receive from the handful of local tribal residents is moving and subtle and should have been developed more. I mean, how cool that they don't even blink an eye when Carrie and Ballard emerge from a pond at the conclusion of one of their dreamtime rituals. I would have liked to have some didgeridoo added to the soundtrack, and maybe some explorations of these 'ancient astronauts are future time travelers' tangents, as the whole tweaked and disbelieving trigger-happy sheriff thing's been done to death, and the battle scenes are, well, incomprehensible.

Costumes are--as with the finest Ozploitation--a fusion of the macho and S/M emasculating

But hey it's got a lot of Ozploitation-style craziness, an admirably deadpan integrity, and no CGI. The lead women fight like the braves and the geologist is cute and can handle her lines like a pro. I enjoyed it, though I skipped through some of their more idiotic run-ins with the law which I could see coming a kilometer off, and I'm painfully aware that it gets no love from the press: it's "an example of Australian cinema at its most derivative and dull," notes the NY Times. Well, they should know!
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Both films are on a 'Sci Fi Marathon Four Pack' from Shout! which I acquired for like $5. Each looks pretty good though is clearly remastered from a 16mm full frame print. Maybe neither ever was ever wider. Neither film looks particularly cropped. So... I recommend it.

The other two films in the set are ARENA and AMERICA 3000. I haven't seen either but love them already.