Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a movie from 1985. That movie is "Malibu Express".
Now, for those of you who don't know, this movie was written, produced, and directed by a man named Andy Sidaris. And before I go even further, I should mention that, throughout the next couple of months, I'm gonna be covering quite a few movies from him. Now, to anyone who's not familiar with his work, he was mostly known for making trashy-looking action movies featuring girls in skimpy outfits and other such stuff. I'll get more into that in a second. Now I know I've stated in the past that I'm not really into plotless action films, but I've always had an interest in checking out Mr. Sidaris's work. And tonight, I'm finally gonna get a chance to see if any of them are good.
Now, to go into a little more detail into what I'm gonna be covering here, like I said, all of the movies I'm gonna be covering from him are action films. And in particular, the movies I'm gonna be covering from him are all part of a series known as the "Triple-B" series. And in case you're wondering, the Triple-B stands for Bullets, Bombs and Babes. Speaking of babes, that brings me to another point. All of the movies that he made under this series starred women that were either Playboy Playmates or came from Penthouse Pets. Now whether or not any of them can actually act decently is something I'll find out for myself, but it does leave me rather curious here.
As for what I know about tonight's movie, honestly, I don't really know much, outside of what I just described to you guys. The only thing I actually do know about is one of the leading actresses. Now admittedly, I don't really know if she was also a member of Playboy or Penthouse at one point, but what I can tell you about her is that she goes by the name of Sybil Danning. And for those of you who don't remember, she was the star of a god-awful movie I covered last year during my "Full Moon vs. Troma" marathon, which was called "Panther Squad". I hated "Panther Squad", so she isn't exactly winning me over here.
So, in case you couldn't tell, I'm kinda dreading about what she's gonna do here, but who knows? She could pleasantly surprise me and actually pull off something decent here in this movie. I'm also hoping for the movie itself to be very interesting. But the only way I'm gonna find out the answer to that is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Malibu Express".
5 minutes later
Wait, she was actually wearing her racing suit while being completely topless underneath it?! OK...admittedly, I'm not really an expert on how women dress up for racing, but was that actually common back in the 80's to just have women topless while wearing nothing but a racing suit? Mind you, I'm not judging what she wears, but it does leave me rather curious, you know what I mean?
6 minutes later
Well, guys, I am able to say this much. The music here has been pretty good so far. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this song here sounds like old school country music. I haven't listen to that in a long time, and hearing it now sounds pretty cool to me.
11 minutes later
Well, guys, it is official: Cody Abilene is a fucking man-whore to a tee. He has so many woman friends that he hangs out with, and the only thing I can ask is how many of them has he, or is about to potentially bang? So far, he's only done it once, which was with Contessa. But I'm kinda surprised he's able to hold in those urges while he's on the job. I guess that's dedication for you.
5 minutes later
You guys know how I mentioned a moment ago that Cody was a man-whore for having so many women friends that he hangs out with? Well...I'm think I'm gonna have to rescind that statement, because I found somebody else who's a fucking creepy scumbag that goes by the name of Shane. So far, this guy has taken pictures on a timed camera while having sex with a girl in the shower, and he's currently having sex with *another* girl while having a hidden camera that he's operating that watches them. I think it's safe to say that I'm beginning to despise Shane at this point.
19 minutes later
All right, guys, well, good news is that Shane's now dead. Bad news...well, I guess he can't pay off the $30,000 that he was suppose to pay off. Not that it matters much anymore, considering he's now dead. Still though, can't really feel sorry for the guy, so...good riddance, I say.
9 minutes later
So, instead of actually looking for any kind of evidence at the beach house that Lilian gave Cody, the first thing he does is to have sex with his lady cop friend from earlier. Gotta love to see Cody's priorities are in the right place, you know what I mean?
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Malibu Express". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Wow, um...I'm trying to figure out where to start here...
I suppose the first thing I can say right off the bat is that this movie is dumb as shit. It hardly ever takes itself seriously, and what little seriousness they try to play up ultimately ends up being forgotten about as the rest the film ends up being about as dumb as it gets. There's very, very little plot here, which I kinda expected, being this is an action film and all. We have a *lot* of scenes and shots where women are either topless or are having sex with the good-looking guys. Well, mostly Cody Abilene, and a couple of times with Shane. Although the latter is done in a more creepy way. But yeah, this movie is not shy about showing any of that. Which, in part, is the part of the movie's charm. Because, even though this is only the first movie of his that I've seen, the main selling point of Sidaris's movies were the beautiful women he casted. And like I said, this movie isn't shy about showing any of that. So yeah, if you like seeing tons of fanservice, this movie will definitely deliver on that aspect.
Our story here, like I said, is very thin and is only used as a framing device for this movie's main selling point. What little plot involves our main character, Cody Abilene, who's a Private Investigator that's being sent out to a home owned by a woman in a wheelchair named Lilian to investigate some sort of computer ring that Shane, which is Lilian's butler, gets involved in and has to pay up $30,000 to his boss. Though that kinda gets cut short, seeing as how he ends up getting killed later on, which then gets turned into a murder mystery of who killed Shane. And, of course, there's a bunch of action scenes, too. Really, guys, this story is very bare bones here. And what's really funny about all this is that they try to wrap it up in the most anti-climatic way possible. I'm not gonna spoil it for any of you, guys, on the off chance that you actually care about substance in your action movies. But I will say that the explanation of what happened *kinda* makes sense. I say "kinda", because, like I said, it comes almost out of nowhere. And if you're able to just roll with it, then it's gonna make your viewing of this thing a lot more enjoyable.
Speaking of which, let's talk about the film's humor next. Since the film doesn't really take itself seriously, you would naturally expect the movie to throw in some humor, and this movie's filled with that. There's a lot of sexual humor in it. I'm talking about jokes involving boobs, Cody's dick (yes, seriously), or how almost every woman seems to have the hots for our main character in wanting to have sex with him. All of that is here, along with this running joke where Cody is being stopped by this family, and their son wants to race him and prove that he can beat him. It's kinda stupid, and serves no real purpose to anything, but it still kinda works. The humor itself is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of it is really funny, other times, it falls kinda short. Now I do have to warn some people ahead of time that there are a couple of attempts at offensive humor, specifically, there will be about 2 or 3 moments where a character says the word "faggot". Now I obviously understand that some people will be turned off by this entirely now that I mention it, but like I said, it only happens about several times in the movie. And once it's out of the way, you don't have to worry about hearing it again. Myself personally, I'm not offended by any of this. But it is something that I still wanted to make mention of on the off chance someone gets easily offended by this.
Now even though there's not much of a story here, I actually do want to talk about the dumbest moment in this entire film. See, it happens right around the 3rd act of the film, as Cody and June are being chased down by these 3 bad guys by a helicopter, with Cody taking the wheel in June's racing car. And throughout the chase, June decides to try and have her way with Cody as she keeps coming onto him with her boobs hanging out. Cody keeps telling her no, but she keeps insisting it. And as the bad guys are chasing them from the copter, she notices them and actually asks them do they want her tits! Yes...seriously. She's kinda stupid. And it's when she finally decides to switch her stupid mode off upon realizing that they're carrying these ridiculously over-sized rifles, and tells Cody to step on the gas! Lady, I understand that you clearly want Cody to have his way with you, but there's a time and a place for that kind of shit, and doing so while during such a dangerous chase is clearly *not* one of those times! Good lord...
So yeah, guys, the writing here is stupid as shit. Which, for an action film, that's not really a hard thing to accomplish, but still, at least it knows what it wants to be. And that is being a stupid, cheese-ball action film with lots of women showing off their boobs or wanting to have sex with our main character. And while I'm someone that doesn't really care much about that, the film does have enough charm to where I can overlook a lot of that, because it felt mostly natural, outside of a couple of hiccups involving it's humor. Now that aside, the acting here isn't really that good either. Cody's actor actually provides narration throughout the movie, and it sounds incredibly wooden. Which, when compared to his on-screen performance in this thing, it's actually not that bad. Again, it's not really good, but it's certainly better than almost his entire narration. Most of the female cast members of this movie kinda sucked as well, mostly the two ladies who are always inside Cody's yacht, which he cleverly calls it "Malibu Express". I'm guessing they're the ones who are either at Playboy or the Penthouse Pets. Not totally sure which, don't really care. Point is, their acting sucked. Surprisingly though, the best actress in this movie has to go to Sybil Danning. She plays Contessa in this movie, and she's surprisingly rather decent here. Granted, that's not saying much, considering the only other time I saw her act was in "Panther Squad". But still, she does pull off a decent performance here, so I can at least say that much about her. Most of the other cast members seemed to be hamming up their performances, and judging from that, I don't think they were taking it that seriously. Which is a good thing, because I think that if they had tried to take it seriously, it probably would've destroyed the movie's charm. So, acting wise, it's not really that good, but it's certainly not the worst, either.
The only thing I can really comment on special effects are some blood effects, which there really isn't much of to begin with. Most of the effects boil down to the squib work on the guns, and that's about it. Then again, this movie was probably filmed on a low budget, so I wasn't really expecting anything special when it came to the special effects from 1985. I will say that the costuming here is OK. Most of that I could just say involves any woman wearing very little clothing, but then again, that was the film's intention, so it's kind of a moot point to bring up. I will say, though, that the wig this maid wears looks overly-ridiculous, because the wig is basically just big curly gray hair. The maid outfit she wears is also a little bit tacky, but honestly, I'll take that over the fake wig any day. That aside, the costuming here, like I said, is just OK.
Camerawork here is decent, at least, for the standard of low budget films. It's not great, but it's definitely not horrible either. Lighting here is pretty good. The sound-mix is mixed fine. The music is actually pretty good. Most of the songs in this movie consists of old-school country music. Now admittedly, it might have been made specifically for this movie, rather than using classic country songs in general, but it's still pretty good, and is certainly one of the better highlights of the movie. The score is also decent, what with the usage of banjo music and all. It's something I don't hear used a lot anymore, so to hear it in this movie is a rather nice touch. Otherwise, guys, the music here is pretty good.
So, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Malibu Express"? For the most part, yes, as long you know what you're getting yourself into. If you're someone who likes cheese-ball action films with hardly any plot and a bunch of fanservice to go along with it, then you're gonna adore this thing because it has all of that in spades. If you're looking for a more serious action film, then this thing is not gonna be for you. And as someone who also normally prefers a little more substance in their action films, I would normally disregard these kinds of action films. However, this is one of those cases where I'm not gonna be able to do that here. Because, while the film is dumb as shit, I actually found myself really enjoying this thing for the most part. And the fact that the movie knew what it wanted to be instead being something that it isn't makes this thing all the more charming to watch. So yeah, guys, again, I can most certainly recommend it, provided, of course, that you're into these sorts of movies to begin with. I'm hoping that the rest of the movies I'm gonna cover from Andy Sidaris are gonna live up to what this movie was able to offer. Or perhaps maybe even better than this thing. I have no idea at the moment, so for now, I'm gonna go and watch something else. I think I'm just gonna watch a James Bond movie. And I notice my VHS copy of "The World Is Not Enough" sitting on my VHS shelf there, so I'm gonna go and watch that next, because I haven't seen that thing in a long time. So that's gonna be a fun little nostalgia trip to relieve again.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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