REVIEW: Zarrkor! The Invader!

The one-man Halloween B-fest continues with a movie I've been contemplating with every visit to my Video Emporioum. I mean, the blurb on the box sounded so promising! "...185 feet tall, 300 tons and Deadly Eye Lasers..."! Dude, I'm THERE! Did it live up to the hype? Ummm.. not quite. Anyway, let's break out the American Kennies to watch this American Kaiju...

Zakorr! THE INVADER! (1996)

Preview!: The "Coming Attraction" choice was interesting... as it was Zakorr! The Invader! It looked pretty good, with plenty of building-bashing and a few choice quips. Bring it on!

Monster Island Entertainment, Rhys Pugh: Mr Pugh is the top-billed actor, playing "Tommy". He never touched a pinball table, though. And didn't the Scooby-Doo team go to Monster Island at some stage in the mid-70's?

Kick-start!: We don't waste time, heading straight to "Mt. Aurora, California". (Party on, Zakorr!) As some locals look on, an avalanche tumbles down the side of the mountain. (Well, an unconvincing minature of a mountain, anyway..) And what's causing the avalanche?

Zakorrrrrr awakes!: Man in Rubber Suit Alert! Yes, Zakorr (Roll the R's... it sounds better. No-one in the film, does, though.) bursts out of the rocks and roars. Yes, it DOES sound a bit like you-know-who's roar... The locals run in panic as Zakorr stomps a handy feed store flatter than a pancake. We get a fairly good look at him here...

Godzilla goes punk?: ...Was my intial thought. Zakorr is a huge lizard-y guy, with two big-ass horns sweeping back from his skull. (Twin mohawks? Cool, dude!) Strangely, I had the impression he was a giant mantis from the video box art.

Newark! (In minature): We cut to New Jersey, and a hilarious flyover scene. You know those long sweeping helicopter shots used in so many A-films? Imagine that over a city constructed from repainted ceral packets. This has been a good start...

Postal worker, teeny-tiny girl: We're introduced to Postal Service Employee Tommy about now. And a five-inch tall Valley girl, who appears on his table. She informs him she's a mentally-projected hologram, sent by an Intergalactic Coalition.. becauuse Tommy is the only one who can save mankind! Tommy is confused. So was I...

Girl in white boots?: Lucky for my sanity,. Tommy DOES think to ask why the hologram-girl is dressed like "A mall-tramp?"... His phrase, not mine! Apparently it's to give him something he can relate to. Like, the destruction of Earth would be so totally bogus, y'know? Tommy decides to find out if she's the real McCoy, by asking the...

Big Questions!: Like, whjat's the meaning of life? ("There isn't one") Is there life after death? ("No.") And does his girlfriend really love him. (Nope, she's using him to make another guy jealous... Tommy's on a real roll today, huh?) So WHY is he being picked to save earth?

Mr Average: That's why. According to Interstellar Valley-Girl, he's the most average guy on Earth. I'd buy that. Of course, Tommy has been watching the Cartoon Network, and has no idea what's going on in California. He flips the channel, getting the lowdown from various news sources. Including...

Marty Carlson, Ace Reporter!: Who's on location in Mt Aurora. At least until Zrakorr heads his way. (Unseen of course, due to budgetary constraints...) As he goes to static, his anchor intros her in-studio guest.

Crypto-zoologist Stephanie Martin What's a "crypto-zoologist", you say? An expert on "non-existant species", apparently. Man, is that a limited field of study, or what? She runs us down on Zakorrs' vital statistics, repeating herself a few times, possibly due to the fairly clunky dialogue.

Science is boring!: In a funny bit, she begins to go into a technical spiel, so the anchor quickly cuts her off. Yep, no sense letting your scientist bore people with science, huh?

Weapons useless, Tommy=bigass target: Teeny-Tiny Girl briefs Tommy on Zakorr. No earthly weapin can harm it, it's homing in on Tommy himself, and the key to Zakorrs destruction lies within him. Sounds simple, huh? However, delivering this information took AGES, with TTG stopping and starting and often repeating herself. (With Tommy asking questions that seemed designed to string things out as long as possible... I guess it's not easy to fill 80 minutes of screen-time!)

Superior morals: That's the reason TTG gives Tommy when he asks how they can allow Zakorr to be unleashed on Earth. "Our moral code is so superior, we can do what we like to you!"... She forgot to add "Your stupid minds! Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

Power to the people!: We cut back to Zakorr, who's having fun with the Power Company. After some random destruction of a power pylon and some adjoining balsa wood buildings, it's back to Tommy.

WRPT, Tommy goes postal!: Tommy makes his way to the TV station, hoping to secure the help of the Worlds Best Crypto-zoologist. He drops the ball spectaularly, quickly convincing her he's a raving nutbar. This leads to a near-endless scene as everyone freaks out, leading to a Mexican stand-off between Tommy and two security guards. (Who I like to think of as "Over-Actor" and "Non-Actor".) Actually, it was during this sequence that I realised what the acting abilities displayed in the film were reminding me of. Soft-core pornography, without the simulated humping! Anyway, Tommy manages to grab Non-Actors gun and takes Stephanie hostage. The cops arrive in record time as Tommy barricades himself in a stairwell. And we suddenly have a new contender in the "Worst Overacter" awards...

Shouty cop!: Here's how things went. Two cops arrive. One cop shouts at people. The news director talks to the cop. The cop shouts at him. The security guard offers to help catch tommy. The cop shouts at him, too. Repeat for five minutes. Something's missing from the Giant Monster film... oh, that's right, the Monster!

Postal worker bad! (Though polite): The best gag in the film followed the shouting scene. Tommy warns the cops not to rush him, because "I'm armed and I have a hostage!"... "He's a postal worker!" Stephanie helpfully adds. Shouty cop quickly backs away from the door. They one-up the gag by having Tommy ask Stephanine to please come over to him. "Why?" she asks. "Beacuse I need to use you for a human shield..." is his reply. Well, c'mon, Steph, he DID say "please"!

Over-exposition, conspiricy cop: We waste even more running time as Tommy explains his situation all over again to the cops. (After doing the same thing with Stephanie in the TV studio.) Non-Shouty Cop George turns out to be a UFO Conspiricy Theorist, taking Tommys words as gospel. He takes Shouty Cop hostage, and we FINALLY cut to the Big Guy!

Zakorr SQUASH!: Ahh, 60 seconds of Zakorr trashing a buildng on the Arizona/New Mexico border. Hang on, wasn't he in California last time we saw him? Someone get me an atlas to work that one out... Anyway, after this token rampage, George gets Tommy and Steph to his squad car in the rear of the building. (All the other cops are out front... boy, that's lucky, or we might have had to hire another squad car for the production!) They drive off, as we save even MORE money by hearing about the big Zakorr vs the Napalm-Dropping Air Force battle via a radio. I might have imagined it, but the guy on the radio REALLY sounded familiar...

Greg Proops?: There was no credit for the radio announcer at the end of the film, though... so I can't be sure. Sure sounded like him, though...

Script is flundering... directionless. Re-capping? NOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!: Okay, I didn't use THAT many "O"s in my notes, but it was close. We've cut to a new character... a wheelchair-bound nerd with no social skills. Most films would take it as read we'd assume he'd been given the story. But, nooooooo... not Zakorr! We have to listen as Tommy runs through the same dialogue for the THIRD time! Nerdboy is a hacker... or as he puts it, a...

"Cybernaught": What's the difference? Well, cybernaughts appear to be able to break into things by placing their fingers on a computer keyboard and rapidly bashing random keys. Like so... kro;wjrlwjkfksdfkslfklsflsfs... Holy crap, I just hacked NASA! Give me a minute to book Tom Green and Pauly Shore one-way trips to the International Space Station...



Done. You're welcome.

Anyway, Nerdboy sets up a program to search the internet for "Zakorr" references. Beacuse this will take some time to collect the info, he proceeds to ask the most inane questions ever captured on film, peppered with random observations and bad quips.

DO SOMETHING!: This goes on for some time, as you can see... Oh, thank God, a fade-out.

Environmentalists are silly!: We fade back in to see a guy on TV proclaiming Zakorr to be an endangered species that should be protected. This could have been a funny bit, had it not been needlessly extended. In fact, the scene was longer than Zakorrs...

45-second rampage!: Man, they MUST be saving up the special effects budget for the end of the film, huh?

"Off" switch, Williston, Arizona: So, Zakorr has an "off" switch, apparnetly. And it's located in Arizona. How do we discover this? Through ten boring minutes of Nerdboy doing his Magic Finger-Wiggles on the keyboard. (Hacking radar installations, weather satellites and the Bad Plot-O-Matic Website.) The trio head for Arizona, via the magic of...

Stock footage!: Specifically, a Stock Footage airliner. Thankfully, they leave Nerdboy (A Ned for the ages, more annoyiing than a whole gaggle of Kennies..) back in New Jersey.

X Files: Gullible Saps Version: They arrive in Arizona, having brought new suits to disguise Tommy and George. This convinces the locals they must be from the government, having tried to call them in a few days earlier. Why? Because they're local yokels, and therefore have the collective I.Q of pocket lint. And why did they call in the Feds? Because the local diner has a new conversation piece...

Teeny-Tiny UFO: Which crashed through the roof. It seems invulnerable to damage, with the local sherrif telling them it resisted an arc-welders flame. Tommy decides he has to take it with him. "Don't move it, it might explode!" blurts the sherrif. Dude, you used a frickin' ARC-WELDER on it! I think it's safe...

Zakorr in the Big City!: Zakorr pauses to wreck a few more buildingd. Ahh, death, destructrion, horror! Film at eleven! Well, there's actually no death, as Zakorr hasn't been in the same shot with an actual actor the whole movie. Given the quality of the blue-screen shots during the Big Climax, it's probably a blessing. I did get a big laugh from the skyscraper he attacks... with windows quite clearly made by applying Saran-Wrap over holes in the cardboard structure. Incidently, the moment Zakorr began firing off his eye-lasers in this scene, I guessed EXACTlY how the film would end. Seconds later, Dawn looked up and picked it, too! And she wasn't even WATCHING the film!

Pointless padding, 15 minutes left!: I calculate Zakorr has featured in less than FOUR MINUTES of his own film! He's going to get laughed at during the next Kaiju Convention! Even more time is wasted when the locals suddenly decide the hereos AREN'T the FBI. So George does his best Braveheart impression to boggle them into submission. "Best" is used in a relative sense, of course... Eventually, they drive off to the Big Finale.

Tommy goes solo: However, the trio's progress is stopped by a police roadblock. Tommy crashes it and drives on to face his destiny. You GO, Tommy!

ACT-ing! Ahh, the Oscar Clip moment! Tommy stares down Zakorr and uses the old "COME ON! What are you waiting for? Come get me!" schtick. Zakorr needs no second invitations and moves in for the Squish. (Complete with the aforementioned Bad Blue-Screen Effects...)

Captain America LIVES!: And Tommy raises the tiny UFO thingee above his head like a shield and deflects Zakorrs Deadly Eye Lasers with it! Several go wild, before one hits Zakorr dead center.

WEAK!!: Which has the effect of turning Zakorr into a big ball of energy that flies off into space. Well, that was vaguely unsatisfying.

Hospital, BIG line stumble, The End: We cut to Tommy in a hospital bed. Which seems strange, as he wasn't so much as scratched during the climax. The overbearing news anchor interviews him, having a MAJOR verbal hiccup over one line. Well, reshoots are expensive... Anyway, we're out of here... apart from the one thing that (Nearly) salvages this entire movie...

Zakorr theme-song!: Man, was THIS funny, or what? Sample line... "You better put down that puny gun/If I were you, I'd simply scream and run!/ZAKORRRRRRRRRRRR!" (Odd coincidence time... the lead vocalist was "Hilary Pugh"... nepoitism rules!)

Skeeters Summary: After the trailer, I was pretty much convinced this was going to be an above-average Big Dumb Monster flick. I hate it when I'm wrong. (I should have noticed the tiny "Full Moon Productions" logo on the box, huh?) Boring, boring, BORING talk-fest with far too little Man-in-Rubber-Suit action. Big G's reputation as "King of the Monsters" is safe from THIS Yankee try-hard...