Mill Creek Reviews: Laser Mission (1989)

After a long hiatus due to a busted computer, MCR is back with "Laser Mission," an early Brandon Lee action movie vehicle and possibly the worst movie ever made.

* 1/2 /****

If you think Day of the Panther is the best action movie of the 80s, you probably have seen Laser Mission. Because compared to this thing, just about every other movie ever made is a masterpiece.

We begin at a chi-chi party, where the Verbig diamond -- so named, apparently, because it is vurry big -- is unveiled just in time for shotgun-wielding thugs to filch it. Cut to Brandon Lee as mercenary Michael Gold, who arrives via jumbo jet at an airport built in someones living room. Gold meets the brilliant Professor Braun played, in a creative bit of casting, by Ernest Borgnine. Braun has knowledge of some vaguely defined laser technology that promises to revolutionize cold warfare, so both the U.S. and the Soviet Union are trying to abduct him. The commies meet with more success. Having had the bad sense to get into this movie, Borgnine has the good sense to get right back out again, at least for the time being, as Russian (are they Russian?) agents tranquilize them both, absconding with the scientist and imprisoning Gold under sentence of death. Naturally he escapes (in a scene reminiscent of the shootouts in Bad Taste, only this time Im not sure the parody is entirely intended).

Golds handlers airdrop him in the made-up country of Kuwana to find Brauns daughter Alissa; here he uses super-spy trickery to commandeer a jeep [example]. Cut to the part of Kuwana thats in Florida, where Gold goes to meet Alissa at a vet clinic. He promises to help her find her dad and meanwhile sneaks into Brauns old office to rummage through his papers, but he accidentally trips an alarm and Nazis in Russian uniforms send bumbling Cuban thugs after him, but theyre just a little too inept. Alissa puts on a blue dress that makes her look fat and she and Gold have dinner. Channeling Valentino, Gold accidentally calls Alissa a prostitute and then affirms that thats okay with him. [Example] Then, after getting a cryptic clue from some dying old guy, they steal a van, blow away a bunch more baddies, get lost in the desert, have a run-in with the worst shot in human history, find a horse, and go to a hotel. All this doubtless takes the better part of a week and yet Alissa spends the whole time wearing the same smelly dress. Theres a ton more limp fight scenes, such as this one with another Russian Nazi or maybe hes a German communist in a room replete with wall-mounted weapons a la Matrix Reloaded except that no one never uses them. So much for Chekovs sage advice. Eventually the diamond turns up again, Gold and Alissa take turns being hostages, there are more fight scenes, and then an amazing twist ending.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Laser
• Mission
• Brandon
• Lee
• verbig
• diamond
• chichi
• brandon
• lee
• 80s
• action
• move
• horrible
• blue
• dress
• fat
• terrible
• bad
• taste
• awful
• not
• funny

[MisterRiffley]

see if you can spot the stuffed gopher.

[davidscribe]

Great review. This film looks hilariously bad.

It's good to see you back and still at it, watching all those turkies so we don't have to.

[avalonroad]

I really liked Brandon Lee even before the Crow, but I'm glad I saw this review so I'll never have to watch this film. Good god that looks aweful...

Good review man!