Firepower (1993)

Honestly, I was expecting this to be terrible, even for a bad B movie. Boy, was I wrong. This movie is hella fun. A truly shitty Robocop rip-off with Chad McQueen in the starring role, 'Firepower' is highly recommended. It's kinda post-apocalyptic, but not really. The team of Daniels and McQueen wear those uniforms that all the police officers in Robocop did, so I think it was set in the future, but I could be wrong. A lot of people complain that Gary Daniels is the "sidekick," but that's not necessarily a bad thing in a movie like this. McQueen plays the straight man well, and Daniels gets to relish his role as a wise-cracking super cop. He was basically a poor man's Goose from Mad Max. The plot is all over the place, and what is the focal point at one moment in the movie will be completely forgotten until much later. The movie can't decide if it wants to be a post-apocalyptic buddy cop thriller or an underground fight movie. Of interesting note is that Jim Hellwig (now Jim Warrior) is here. For all you wrestling fans, Hellwig is notorious for being the unstable former professional wrestler-turned conservative right wing nut known as the Ultimate Warrior- once the biggest wrestling superstar of the early 90s. It was awesome to see him in this as much as he was- I was actually expecting he was only gonna be in it for about 10 minutes with the old producer bait and switch, but we actually get to see ol' Jimmy kick some royal ass in the death ring. Ol' Hellwig doesn't say much in this, and when he does, he just sounds like a more coherent version of the Ultimate Warrior. When he's in the ring or beating the crap out of good guys, he's not doing anything fancy, just the same stuff he did in the wrestling ring, complete with snarls and shouts. It's hilarious. Damn. It was hard to find things to complain about in this movie- the only thing I could think of was that the plot went from trying to take down Hellwig's character (the Swordsman) and his crew, and get some phony AIDS vaccine off the streets, to Daniels and McQueens' characters competing in an underground fight competition. I guess it is all kinds of hilarious that "the future" in this movie is now two years past. I'd give this movie five stars just for the five minute montage of Daniels doing the splits and the camera focusing in on his chest, but I've decided to be a little more even handed. Wow. Nothing to bitch about here- rent it, you'll like it. LOL