Megaforce
I figured with
this G.I. Joe movie coming out soon and it looking like it will probably
become the best summer blockbuster of 2009 by default, I should prepare by
watching a movie about an elite asskicker army squad,
1982’s Megaforce.
The film Megaforce opens with some narrated text telling us
that the existence of a superarmy known as Megaforce is officially denied by all the nations of the
world but that they do in fact exist and fight the forces of tyranny. I guess thousands of soldiers in spandex
leotards driving high-speed tanks and motorbikes that fire rockets and carrying
out the foreign policy of the world’s superpowers is one of those things like
Bigfoot that can move around so discreetly that they are able to hide in the
obscurity of myth.
Everything is
pretty obvious in this movie. The hick
cowboy character is named Dallas. The
guy who rocks out to classical musical is named Beethoven. The egghead nerd who designs Megaforce’s gadgets is called The Egg. Megaforce is led by
Ace Hunter, who is an ace at hunting terrorists. The bearded South American Communist
guerrilla terrorist is named Guerera. His French restaurant is named Chez Guerera. Okay, I
made that last part up.
It turns out
the reason Megaforce has never gone after Guerera is that nobody asked them to. This film tells the story of somebody asking
them to take out Guerera and his gorilla
army, but then changing their mind.
Fools, you can’t cancel an order for a war. Once that fucker’s shipped, she’s yours. That’s like trying to return a puppy. We are told that the world’s armies all
contribute their top soldiers to Megaforce. They all wear leotards with a patch of their
nation of origin’s flag on the shoulder.
I think it’s kinda bad for team spirit that
Dallas wears the Confederate flag on his shoulder. I mean, Megaforce
is about coming together, not splitting existing nations apart. But Ace doesn’t seem to mind. I tend to think military types are all macho
and serious and aggressive, but they are all really cheerful and smiley. Maybe the guys like R. Lee Emery are just the
ones who get passed over for recommendation to Megaforce.
We’re told they
are an army of equals under the moral authority of Ace Hunter, who is an
American man who looks like one of the BeeGees with
his big bearded grin and the way he zips his bright spandex leotard up and then
pulls the zipper back down slightly to reveal standard military regulation
chest hair. He spends a lot of time
striking poses and grinning and exchanging high fives with his men.
Even though
it’s the same setup as Star Trek where people of different nationalities
and races are all eager to get in this joint venture where they get bossed
around by a white American dude, it doesn’t come across racist like how Star
Trek made a lot of fun of various people’s accents and made the Asian
dude’s skill wielding a samurai sword and other such stereotypes.
I know I
thought all those reviews that dwelled on Doctor Manhattan’s exposed penis in
that movie Watchmen were being immature.
So I feel like I’m being a bit of a hypocrite here. But you see a lot of cock in this movie and a
fair portion of rectal camel toe. Megaforce’s leotards give you a crystal clear idea of the
contours of all its members’ members.
And unlike Watchmen, it feels like the shot composition and the
poses Ace strikes are designed to accentuate this.
There’s even
one scene that’s supposed to be romantic that is shot entirely in silhouette
where Ace is shot in profile with his hands on his hips but he has one finger
sticking out forward from his hips. It’s
like something straight out of Austin Powers and straight into a
drinking game. It doesn’t help that in
that scene Ace and a woman are comparing the medals they have and she says “You
can’t judge a soldier by looking at her chest.” You throw in a line like
that and it makes all the other shots that are framed to include Ace’s bulge
and asscrack seem like this movie is intentionally
sexual.
Even if you
don’t find the bulge in this movie distracting or funny, you’ve got to admit
that it doesn’t really make sense as a militaristic uniform. Megaforce has all
sorts of crazy technology, but they never actually mention that these leotards
are bulletproof or even stain resistant.
These guys ride into combat without so much as elbow pads or a jock
strap. But they aren’t big on camouflage
either. They have rainbow-coloured
parachutes and each of their motorbikes also release a different colour of
smoke so that when they all ride together in a row it makes a rainbow. Megaforce is an
army of grinning men who wear spandex leotards and I think a rainbow is a good
symbol for them because it’s many colours coming together is just like how they
are men from different nations all coming together.
You’re probably
wondering why I am not discussing the action in this film. Well, that’s because there really isn’t
much. The bulk of the movie is spent
with Ace giving a tour of his facility, which he claims cost more to build than
the pyramids of Egypt, although he probably doesn’t factor in inflation and the
fact that slaves worked for free. He
shows off all the technology Megaforce has, which
includes some goofy shit like holograms of Porky Pig. I’m not sure why he needs to do this, some
world leaders have already asked him to take out Guerera. It’s kinda
preaching to the converted. They’ve
already requested Megaforce’s services, but they
didn’t do their research. It turns out
Ace used to be drinking buddies with Guerera. This represents a bit of a conflict of
interests to me, but it doesn’t bother any of the world leaders so they still
want Megaforce to take out Guerera.
So then we
finally get an action sequence at the end.
Megaforce all show up and blow up Guerera’s military complex, but the politicos get cold
feet. They call up Ace and tell him that
some people might interpret going into other countries with tanks and blowing
people up as an act of war and the politicos don’t want that and try to cancel
the war. Maybe they should’ve paid more
attention during the tour because it probably would’ve given them an accurate
representation of their services. But I
guess when all the nations of the world contributed their top military
personnel and technology to a secret 
unaccountable army the point was to limit their actions
to polite diplomacy dictated by public opinion.
I think the
best part of this movie is the poster.
It brandishes what you’d think would be Megaforce’s
motto “Deeds not words” but nobody actually ever says that in the movie
and most of the movie is spent on words with Ace just talking about Megaforce’s capabilities.
There’s also the tagline “There’s never been a super hero like Ace
Hunter” which is true since he’s mostly a tour guide and tour guides are
not typically referred to as heroes or super.
There is some
funny dated dialogue. My favourite is
where Geurera states that in the 80s people can no
longer afford to be idealistic and these are no times for action heroes. Looking back we all know that this was an era
of great economic prosperity during which the Cold War allowed people to be
idealistic and the bulk of the big hero action features were made. What’s even funnier is up until this line I
thought the film was supposed to be set in the future. Maybe he’s talking about the 2080s, but I
doubt it.
So, if a movie
where you laugh at a dude’s balls that is slightly less racist than Star Trek sounds like a recommendation
to you, you’ve got it. I’m not sure
that’s the type of thing you can completely enjoy alone at home. I saw this in the cinema and so the laughter
was kinda infectious and the way this guy stood and
thrust his crotch at the camera when he would strike various poses was probably
greatly amplified by seeing it on a giant movie screen. But if you like movies from 1982, then you’ll
probably like this one because it is from 1982.
As far as these elite asskicker squad movies
go, it has set a pretty low bar for when I see G.I. Joe in a couple
weeks. Hopefully they’ll be more deeds
than words.
Like this, soldier? Check out these other related words (not
deeds):
The future is a lot like
the recent past.
A film with only one ball.
This motherfucker’s got
the touch of the poet.