So Bad Its Good? (Maximum Overdrive (DVD))

Member Name: wampyrii

Product:	Maximum Overdrive (DVD)
Date:	08/07/02 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I laughed lots

Disadvantages: I really don't think I was meant to

There is undoubtably no other author quite so abused and misused by the movie industry than Stephen King. His books are regular visitors to the very highest reaches of the best-sellers lists, sell and delight millions across the globe(they bore me these days incidentally, but that's besides the point) and yet have been consistently made into really awful movies. Of course, a few stand out from the crowd as being the exceptions which prove the rule, but for the most part, and especially when you think of his short stories, Hollywood has made some real howlers out of undeniably excellent source material. Perhaps it was the recognition of this which lead Stephen King to direct Maximum Overdrive himself, perhaps he just fancied a stint behind the camera - who knows - but sadly the result is no different either way. Its a stinker.

Of course, its not a stinker for the whole movie, in fact, for the first 30-40 minutes its rather fun in a cheesy kind of way, but then it bogs down and goes absolutely nowhere whilst taking an extra hour to get there. The thing with some short stories is that's exactly what they are - short - and sometimes there really isn't enough there to stretch it out to a full length movie which is where I think Maximum Overdrive falls down. The premise is quite ludicrous, but for horror fans, there is plenty of gratuitous mindless killing performed in bizarre ways as the machines rebel against their masters in the first half hour but then its a case of stretching it out to feature length which doesn't work. As a 45 minute short movie this would have been great. Anyway, not that I've lost you, let me tell you a little about the plot so you might have some idea about what I'm rambling one about...

We are told the Earth will be bathed in the tail of a comet which is passing close by for 8 whole days - an event which is portrayed to us by a phospherent pulsating green glow in the skies which is all very nice 1950s s
ci-fi in its execution. Nothing untoward is expected from such an event, but soon it transpires something very odd seems to be happening to the world's machinery during this period and its not that they're just behaving strangely, but behaving homicidally! Only in the mind of Stephen King. The movie launches straight into the revenge of the machines - a drinks machine takes out a little league baseball team by firing cans at them, one kid who escapes its wrath is run down by a steamroller, a dog is killed by a remote controlled car, arcade machines electrocute their players, an electric knife turns on its user...yadda yadda, there are plenty of deaths for the bloodthirsty horror fan in the first portion of the movie and an interesting variety of execution as well. You can't complain.

The problem is, the main part of the movie focuses upon a rag-tag collection of quirky characters who find themselves holed up in a truck stop where they are held hostage by a gang of big trucks - basically, anyone who survives the machines' initial onslaught ends up hiding in here and erm, then it becomes crushingly dull and drawn out. Emilio Estevez (showing once more why he doesn't get much work) heads this lot which also includes Brett(a slutty hitcher), Curt and Connie(newlyweds - Connie is played by the woman who is the voice behind Lisa Simpson in The Simpsons...and damn is she annoying!), Hendershot(a real prat who owns the truck stop and just happens to keep a bazooka in his basement!), Wanda(waitress at the truck stop and given the worst lines and most overacted performance imaginable) a Bible selling pervert(King likes to make religious people hypocrites and freaks in his books - no comment) and the usual collection of half-wits and faceless "people-put-there-to-die-and-nothing-else&quo t; characters which are the staple fare of horror movies. All these bicker and deliver some appauling lines whilst watching trucks led by one with a Green Go
blin face hanging from its front grid(and yes, it is the same villain in Spiderman, just in case you thought this wasn't a topical movie review ;o) to personify it whilst the rest of us wonder why it takes so long for 40 tonne trucks to figure out that the flimsy wooden shack of a building could just be drived into when they are portrayed as being so damn smart...

In all honesty, I can't say Maximum Overdrive was ever meant to be a serious horror movie - or at least one would hope not or it really is a lot more awful than I already think it is! Either way, you can't help but laugh when the coach of the baseball team is felled by a coke can propelled with high velocity to the danglers, or in the first minute when Stephen King himself in a cameo moment turns to his wife and says "Honey, this ATM machine just called me an asshole" so its not without entertaining moments. Incidentally, after 90 minutes of listening to Connie jabber and whine it won't just be the ATM machine spouting abuse at Mr. King...but I digress. Unfortunately, you also can't help but laugh when Wanda goes insane screaming "We made youuuuuuu!" over and over in one of the most hideous pieces of overacting I've ever seen, or in the ludicrous make-out scene between Billy and Brett or when Emilio tries to do an Arnie with his "Adios Mutherf*cker" and constipated scowl which are some of the supposedly serious moments which are so badly realised that you find yourself laughing in embarassment at the movie rather than anything else. If we are talking entertainment in the "so bad its good" sense of the word, then Maximum Overdrive may just have it in bucketloads for the naff movie connoissuer...and I'm afraid I am becoming one lately so its not going to get the lowest of low ratings it probably deserves. Take a star off if a naff movie is literally nothing more than a naff movie to you. ;o)

Most horror movies require, if
not demand, a certain amount of dumbing down from the audience to be fully appreciative of them, but arguably Maximum Overdrive asks a little too much and does it a little too often to ever reach an audience of anything OTHER than the aforementioned bad movie lovers. The general premise is of course ludicrously hokey in the first place but King's execution makes it impossible to follow without becoming annoyed at the huge plot holes and coincidences. Why do apparently bloodthirsty juggernauts not just drive through the flimsy wooden truck stop building? Why doesn't Connie and Curt's car turn on them like all other machines? Where did a truck learn morse code? Just who the hell keeps a bazooka in their basement anyway? Why are machines so intent on causing damage to other machines - destroying your allies is hardly the way to take over the world is it? And so on...there are far too many things which don't add up to mention. Biggest of all might be why the rest of the survivors didn't just throw Connie out to the mercy of the machines though!

Its quite bizarre to consider that this story was remade again after this flopped, into a TV movie called "Trucks" (the name of the short story too) which somehow managed to even surpass this in terms of being even more awful - this time it doesn't even have the unintentional funny bits which save Maximum Overdrive from a 1 star rating either. I wonder what the budget on that one was because its hardly high here. You'll wonder why a truck explodes before it crashes, giggle at the ENORMOUS size of a obvious dummy's head before it is crushed by a truck (and the body seen afterwards is barelely scratched) and you'll swear King hired a band of drunked blind baboons to handle the continuity. In fairness, the bloody parts are certainly bloody enough, but its not going to keep gore hounds anything more than mildly amused and again, definitely done on the cheap and I'm not even g
oing to touch upon the acting, suffice to say its absolutely horrible and the script matches it perfectly.

The bottom line is Maximum Overdrive is NOT a 1 star movie simply because it manages to be quite entertaining in parts for all the wrong reasons but its not something you'll want to go out of your way to watch. If you thought directors have made a hatchet job of King's movies in the past then this movie will at least go some way to helping you forgive them...just look at the mess HE made!

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