Sunday, February 26, 2023

Watch Party Watch: In the Line of Duty 2 - Super Cops (AKA: Yes, Madam!) (1985)




Watched:  02/24/2023
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1980's
Director:  Corey Yuen


This movie was very bad.  Well, this is actually two different movies stapled together, neither of which was thought out terribly well or given an ending.  I have no idea what was lost in translation, or if this was an edit.  But, woof.

We watched the movie for (a) a pre-fame Michelle Yeoh and (b) Cynthia Rothrock kicking the shit out of people.  And we got those!  And I liked that part.  Plus, really seeing how from 1985, Michelle Yeoh was obviously a star, from her martial arts prowess to her grace on screen to being able to rock some rad 1985 looks (what *can't* she do?).  

But Yeoh and Rothrock are only in maybe 3/7ths of the film.  The rest is handed over to three dum-dums who seem like they're in a kid's film minus the extraordinary amount of foul language the voice-over saddled them with.  

The basic story is that Yeoh's maybe boyfriend? from England is assassinated because he has evidence on film of forged documents from the world's jolliest badguy.  Two dum-dum's accidentally steal the evidence, and hand it over to a dipsit named Fingers who outfits crooks.  Rothrock - who is ADR'd by Lady Matt Barry - is made sort of cruel?  And I think we're supposed to get a good cop/ bad cop pairing between she and Yeoh, but there's so little time spent on it in favor of watching the three dumb-asses mug, it's just bizarre.

The film also just... ends.  Like, there's a lot to unpack after the 90 minutes you just spent with the characters, and a pivot to one of the dummies picking up a gun and committing cold blooded murder was a twist, certainly.  But our heroes are all going to jail at the end.  

I dunno.  It feels like they just forgot to write an ending and were like "oh, Dave.  We ran out of money to finish the third act, so we're going to just have you grab this gun and murder Barry.  Okay?"  And everyone wanted to go home, so they agreed.

I don't hate the movie  but I can't think of anything I enjoyed that wasn't Yeoh or Rothrock related.  (edit:  not true.  I enjoyed the mirthfulness of the chief baddie and the facial hair of his henchman, Wolf.)


No comments: