Death Race 2000 (1975)

 "I think you're one very large baked potato."

There's such a concept as "the greatest film ever". This film doesn't, it's fair to say, stand comparison with The Godfather. There is, however, a category of "greatest B movie ever". This film, at least of those I've seen, is the clear winner. It's cheap. It's bonkers. It's brilliant. It's produced (not directed) by Roger Corman.

I mean, it's Wacky Races where killing people gets you points in a dystopian future where this serves as both bread and circus. It's a delicious black comedy in a dictatorial America in 2000(!) where "Mr President" has a Winter Palace abroad and blames the French for everything, as in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The violence is hilarious, as is the not too serious documentary style. There's a moment where Joe kills a race official, and suddenly they're fair game.

David Carradine is superb, entirely embracing the fim's camp aesthetic. Sylvester Stallone, pre-Rocky, is, well Sylvester Stallone. Between them, they carry the film, although it's sad the superb Simone Griffeth never did much else.

It really is Wacky Races with more skulduggery and more gore ('70s style), but the dry, deadpan humour is delicious. It's very much of its time- one of the racers is a Nazi!-but it's gloriously dark, gloriously violent, and gloriously funny. 

Demolition Man (1993)

"The exchange of bodily fluids? Do you know what that leads to?"

From unpromising beginnings- Sylvester Stallone's first line is a very crude bit of blatant exposition- a film I was expecting to be just a fun '90s action movie turns out, as well as being exactly that, a genuinely (and intentionally) funnt comedy at the same time as well as a timely warning against an over-sanitised society. No sex or alcohol? That's no utopia.

The cast is superb. Yes, this may no longer be the Stallone of First Blood who actually acts but more the Stallone of Judge Dredd whom you just point as a script and let you do his shouty stuff, but that's exactly what's needed for the part of John Spartan. Wesley Snipes gives a much more accomplished performance- yes, his role as Simon Phoenix calls for much scenery chewing, but this is considered, nuanced and multi-layered scenery chewing and the perfect performance. The lovely Sandra Bullock, meanwhile, gives a perfect comedic performance. She's a talented actress, although sadly one who (present film excepted) hasn't always chosen the best films in which to appear. And Nigel Hawthorne, although bizarrely miscast, is superb as always.

On the surface this is a film about a cop and a psycho from 1996 emerging into the distant future of 2032, where they continue their rialry amongst much skulduggery. Yes it is just as much a comedy of manners, finding copious humour in putting its macho hero in a saccharine future where police are unable to handle violence and swearing is prohibited. I'm certainly not a libertarian of the right-wing sort, you'll never catch me railing against that nebulous concept of "political correctness", but, in its attitude to civil liberties, sex, beer and ratburgers, this is perhaps a rebuke from the '90s towards our society of facial recognition and that silly, arbitrary fourteen units a week. It's also a bloody good and well-shot film, both as a comedy and as an action film.

Judge Dredd (1995)

“I never broke the law. I AM THE LAW!!!”

This isn’t my first viewing, of course, but the last time I saw this film was on VHS and when John Major was prime minister. It’s probably one of those much-maligned films that benefit from being seen some time later.

There’s no doubt that the film has its flaws. A phoning-it-in Sylvester Stallone is woefully miscast, and the film spends most of its running time breaking the sacred commandment that is Thou Shalt Not Remove Dredd’s Helmet. The Angel family are also shovelled pointlessly into the film with no real development, and it’s very obvious that the Mega City One Street scenes, in spite of the rather good design and use of CGI, are shot on a small set shot to look bigger than it is. You’re also made painfully aware of the flat studio floor.

Still, if you look past these flaws,  and the first two in particular, we actually have a bloody good script here and, while clearly straining against the budget, things generally look pretty impressive. Dredd’s characterisation is perfect (with lots of “I knew you’d say that”) and the world of Mega City One and the Cursed Earth is both faithfully and clearly presented in a way which gives us a world true to the 2000 A.D. strip and a film which works pretty damn well for those who, like myself, are not necessarily huge Dredd fans. A complex plot is made admirably easy to follow, there’s lots of humour, and we have the clever including of Fergie as a much-needed Everyman  for us to identify with

The whole thing, inevitably, looks very ‘90s now, and nothing dates the film as much as the stunt casting of Stallone just because he’s a big name. But this is certainly a cut above most ‘90s sci-fi B movies and manages to overcome its flaws. I enjoyed it.

First Blood (1982)

"We ain't hunting him- he's hunting us!"

Appallingly, I'd never seen this '80s action classic until now. First impressions are that, yes, it's a superb action movie, crammed with sizzling set pieces, yet I came expecting a B movie, and what I got was unexpectedly full of pathos. It's 1982; the Vietnam War ended nine years ago for America. But it seems the returning soldiers were shockingly neglected, materially and emotionally, by their country. And, while this is often seen as a right-wing taking point, Rambo's sobbing breakdown before Colonel Trautman seems to be a rebuke at America's individualistic lack of social democratic institutions.

Anyway, this is an awesome film, and cleverer than it  looks. The initial scene establishes that his only purpose is to find his old friends from the war,  it now the last of them is dead, and he’s alone, alienated, in an America with no place for him. And when Will, a two bit sheriff of a shitty little town in Washington state (those accents are a bit southern, though- is this really accurate?) starts to persecute him for no reason it escalated into a war with a trained and flawless killing machine, leaving things to escalate and escalate with each set piece topping the last and every single minute being utterly gripping. And yet Stallone, playing the macho and taciturn Rambo, never loses sight of the character’s pathos.

The whole thing is brilliantly made, from the brief but shocking Vietnam flashbacks during the early police brutality scenes to the Dukes of Hazzard car chases, and the ever-escalating stakes are completely believable. A much better film, and one with much more of a heart, than I was expecting.