It's not just me!!!!

Must share this review of STAN LEE'S HARPIES

Harpies (2007)
Starring Stephen Baldwin, Kristin Richardson,
Peter Jason, Velizar Binev, Jonas Talkington,
Atanas Srebev, Dessi Morales

Directed by Josh Becker

Jason Avery is an ex-cop now working as a museum security guard. Armed
thieves break in intent on stealing a priceless obelisk that looks like a
glowing crystal dinosaur egg that's stored within this vault-like stone
structure that looks like someone merged a Tardis with the Stargate. The
scientist/anthropologist/whatever behind the theft talks of the obelisk
giving him the power to control harpies, demonic winged female monsters of
classic mythology. Through a series of contrived events, the obelisk opens
a time portal that Jason promptly falls into, crash landing over a thousand
years in the past in a land threatened by evil harpies. Initially only
concerned with getting home, Jason gets roped into having to save the
villagers, all of whom proclaim him to be this great "harpy slayer" that
prophecy says would one day come to save the kingdom. A lot of hullabaloo
involves this gold amulet and a mortal villain seeking to gain control of
the obelisk in order to hatch a harpy army for him to command and conquer
with. If you've ever seen Army of Darkness then you can pretty much fill in
the rest of the blanks.

In fact, if you've ever seen Army of Darkness then you have absolutely no
reason whatsoever to ever watch Stan Lee's Harpies. Even if you haven't
seen Army of Darkness there's really no reason whatsoever to ever watch
Stan Lee's Harpies.

Any similarities between Stan Lee's Harpies and Army of Darkness are not a
coincidence - especially since the director is a long-time cohort of Sam
Raimi's. Any similarities between Stan Lee's Harpies and a good movie are
non-existent. Sometimes a movie is so bad it's good and sometimes a movie
is so bad it's just plain bad. Harpies is just plain bad - not even
laughably bad. This is a movie that you can tell exactly what they were
trying to do and still watch them fail pitifully every step of the way.

How pitiful does it get? So pitiful that I began feeling bad for pretty
much everyone involved with this film's creation. Poor quality CGI,
impoverished production values, uniformly bad acting, and a clichéd script:
all the stuff you expect from a Sci-Fi Channel original but this time with
an extra added layer of embarrassment. There were scenes so poorly staged
that it was cringe-inducing to watch.

And for a movie called Harpies there sure weren't that many harpies filling
the screen. Every so often a woman in a cheap nightgown with frizzy hair,
fangs, too much eye shadow, fake-looking wings, and a propensity to make
squeaky snarls that sound like a mogwai in heat takes the screen (or their
animated computer effects double does) to look appallingly stupid, flap
their phony wings, and slash someone up with their claws. As pathetic
looking and utterly devoid of personality as the harpies are, they're still
what the movie is titled after and deserved more screen time that they're
given. Heck, I'd take the harpies over the boring villain named
Bor-something and his quest to unleash a harpy horde of which the bulk of
the plot is devoted to.

Even if every other aspect of Stan Lee's Harpies wasn't an unmitigated
failure, the film would still be doomed by the Stephen Baldwin factor. The
man is no Bruce Campbell, that's damn sure. Few people are. But this is a
film that's trying to make Stephen Baldwin into Ash-lite and Baldwin just
does not have the sardonic charisma to pull it off. Campbell's Ash was a
self-absorbed nincompoop who still managed to do develop some courage and
defeat the Deadites in battle while dishing out sarcastic one-liners.
Baldwin's Jason Avery is just a guy taking things way too seriously much of
the time given the film's tone and there's no zip, no punch, nothing to
Baldwin's line delivery, not that the quips he spouts off are all that
witty to begin with. What counts as clever here is having Jason say "nifty"
in the same manner which Ash said "groovy" only without anything resembling
personality in his voice. Stephen Baldwin gives a thoroughly disinterested
performance that reeks of the producers' having paid him enough to show up
and act but not enough to act like he could give a shit.

I didn't crack a smile once outside of a slightly amusing gag involving the
difficulties of firing a catapult. Aside from that one brief moment there's
not a damn thing that works in the slightest. Shows like "Hercules: The
Legendary Journeys" and "Xena, Warrior Princess" (which the maker of this
film even directed episodes of) did a vastly superior job mixing mythology,
campy humor, and action like this one a weekly basis. It's painfully
obvious the movie they were trying to make was more ambitious than the
Sci-Fi Channel budget would allow, evidenced by the sparse cast clad in
Renaissance Fair attire; though that's something of an amazing statement to
make given this really didn't appear to be all that ambitious a film,
evidenced by how little action there is with more dull skulking about the
forest and time wasted on the romance between Baldwin and a local blonde
babe than on the actual harpy-fighting which last time I checked was
supposed to be the whole point of the film. Even the Army of Darkness
finale with Baldwin battling the final harpy inside the museum in present
time is a dead zone of imagination.

Exactly what Stan Lee had to do with the creation of this movie is anyone's
guess. His name is clearly being used to market it even though the "STAN
LEE'S" part of the title is notably missing from the opening title
sequence. All I know for certain is that this is the second Sci-Fi Channel
original movie with Stan Lee's name before the title (the first being Stan
Lee's Lightspeed from last year), both of which now share the distinction
of being amongst the worst original movies the Sci-Fi Channel has ever
produced. I'm thinking Mr. Excelsior should just stick to comic books.


0 out of 5

Added: Sunday, June 24, 2007
Reviewer: The Foywonder

Stuff and nonsense

I know I've been a very lazy, uninspired writer as of late. I'm enjoying a spate of reading. Either walking on the beach while reading, reading on the Muni to and from work, or just curling up on the couch with a glass of wine or cup of hot chocolate and reading someone else's stuff. Then my sister, now visiting China, sends me something she wants me to post for her 'cause the Great Firewall of China won't let her do it herself.

i mean, she's in China and still writing on her blog. Granted, this is the gal who, upon arriving at our place in San Francisco for a visit, had her laptop up and running within five minutes of hitting the ground here.

But...writing while traveling in China?

Okay, fine, I'm shamed into posting something. And perhaps even getting back to work on my creative writing. I've actually been thinking (something I do now and again) about a sequel to my mystery novel. I'd always planned it as a series, but over the years of disappointments and rejections, I'd kind of lost steam on it. I need to be more self-motivating as a writer, that's for damn sure.

But there's no way I'd be posting if I were traveling in China. I'd be too busy...well...traveling! Lisa, you're not normal. I just want you to know that.

At any rate, I've been reading, amongst other things, a couple of new zombie novels (DEAD CITY by Joe McKinney and PLAGUE OF THE DEAD by Z.A. Recht. Both refreshingly well written and not just in comparison with the mediocre to downright bad writing in most of the other zombie literature available.

Heh. Zombie literature. That just sounds funny.

While not quite as awesome as WORLD WAR Z (my personal favorite zombie novel, written by Max Brooks), both DEAD CITY and PLAGUE OF THE DEAD bring something new and original into the genre, with compelling characters who I actually cared about, and just good, competent writing. Thank you, Joe McKinney and Z.A. Recht for a: proving that I can spend money on a zombie novel and get more than my money's worth instead of feeling like I've just flushed between 10 and 30 bucks down the toilet and b: giving me several hours of excellent entertainment.

I just finished up IF CHINS COULD KILL - CONFESSIONS OF A B-MOVIE ACTOR, by Bruce Campbell. First time I saw him was in EVIL DEAD, which I saw way back in the early '80s when it first came out. And yes, I did go to see it because Stephen King, who at one time was my horror god, deemed it the 'most ferociously original horror movie' out there. And I liked it. And I also thought Bruce Campbell was kinda cute. Then I worked on ARMY OF DARKNESS as (respectively) the onsite armourer's assistant and a fight captain/swordfighting Deadite.

The former involved helping to maintain all of the onset armor, change out leather straps, dress extras and horses in armour, and do whatever it was that Brian, the armourer, needed me to do. Luckily that never involved armouring the leads. Brian did that and it looked to be a thankless job as far as having to outfit Ash, Evil or Good.

The latter involved perfecting the art of stripping out of layers of plastic armor and a latex costume in the quickest amount of time possible so I could pee. I have a miniscule bladder and had to make the most of the breaks between shots. I bet I held the record for quickest Deadite strip and whiz. Okay, there was more to being a swordfighting deadite than the ability to shuck my costume, but I'll write about that another day.

My point today is that the Bruce Campbell as portrayed in his autobiography and the Bruce Campbell that I saw on set don't exactly jive. My overall impression of him was that he was very much like the character Ash: he had a certain amount of charm, but was kind of a jerk. Certainly not approachable if you weren't part of the original Michigan cadre or a co-star. After reading his book, I'm not sure if I just saw him on his bad days or if he genuinely sees himself as a more down to earth person than he came across on set.

Ah well. Either way, working on AOD was a memorable experience and Bruce Campbell remains one of my favorite physical comedic actors. Although I'd pay good money to wipe out the memory of dozens of takes of 'This is my BOOM stick!' It's a funny line. Once. In the movie. But when you're on set and see it over and over and over and over...it sticks in the brain like the unwelcome refrain of a bad song. Like RUN, JOEY, RUN bad.

Or even worse, Peter Pop's memorable ode to Ash. Peter Pop was an extra on AOD. If you've read IF CHINS COULD TALK, I'm 99.9 percent sure that he's the extra that 'knew enough to be dangerous' because he figured out how to be on camera in an inordinate number of scenes. Watch the movie and look for the blond soldier. He shows up almost as often as Ted Raimi. Peter also fancied himself as the new Bob Dylan and would play his guitar during down time. He composed a song for Bruce and the lines 'Army of Darkness....Ash cuts them down...' sung in a Bob Dylanesque drone...well, they'll stay with me for life. Like that damned boom stick.

Good things about AOD?

- Swordfighting for money.

- Working with Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert. I especially liked Rob, who was an excellent producer in terms of dealing with a lot of potentially difficult situations, like stuntmen who didn't like the swordfighters (we weren't 'professional,' y'see, even though those of us hired specifically to swordfight had as many years training to fight under our belts as many of the stuntmen did learning to fall of tall buildings. Being a stuntman did not necessarily mean you were trained to fight with swords), swordfighters who showed up from working on the HOOK set and had major attitudes, scores of unruly extras, and all of the other endless details that producers have to handle.

- Sam, while more distant and preoccupied than Rob, always made a point of thanking everyone at the end of each shooting day/night, from his stars to lowly production assistants and sweaty Deadites.

- Ida, the wardrobe mistress, remains to this day the nicest person I've ever met on a film set.

- Being told 'good job' or getting an approving nod from Rob, Sam and Bruce (not all at the same time, but for the same sequence) after running a particular fight sequence with my favorite swordfighting partner on set, Rick. Don't remember his last name, but we worked really well together and put together a kick-ass sequence that we used in the background of various scenes, including the DeathCoaster battle. Somewhere I have a picture of the two of us that I'll have to post. Anyway, that little bit of validation made the sometimes very uncomfortable filming conditions worth while.

- Having cornbread with honey butter and hot chocolate with whipped cream at Carrow's in Palmdale with my good buddy and fellow Deadite fighter, Julianne M. at the end of the day's shoot.

And a lot more. But it's now time to go to an Oregon Pinot Noir wine tasting at the San Francisco Wine Trader, so it'll have to wait for another day and another post.