Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, we're continuing a tradition that I have been doing for the last several years for this series, which is me covering a movie starring Hulk Hogan in July. And it's kinda fitting, since this is around the same that he unfortunately passed away just last year. So, I think it's more imperative that I keep going with this tradition. And as for tonight's movie, well, it's a comedy that came out in 1996. That movie is "The Secret Agent Club".
Now, I'd love to tell you guys anything that I know about this movie, but sadly, I really don't know anything about it. All I know is that it stars Hulk Hogan in another comedy. In fact, those are really the only genre of films that he's, at least, competent at: Comedies and action films. Mind you, I wouldn't say that the ones that I've seen are exactly "good", but I did really enjoy "Suburban Commando", which was rather decent, as goofy as it was. And while a lot of his films, so far, have been rather hit or miss for me, I'm still enjoying the opportunity to give these movies a chance.
Beyond that, I really know nothing about the plot to this thing. I'm gonna assume that it's suppose to be a family comedy, which can really go either way here. I'm hoping that this one is at least decent. I'm not expecting it to be good, but it could still be on the decent side of thing, or perhaps even reach the cheesiness factor of "Suburban Commando". I don't really know. The only way I'm gonna know if this thing is even watchable at all 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 "The Secret Agent Club".
2 minutes later
OK, guys, the film's just started and I already have a bit of a complaint. You guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but for some reason, the music keeps getting cut off at random times. Now I don't know if that's just the version that I'm watching off YouTube right now, or if that was also an issue on the home video releases as well. Either way, it's a little bit distracting at the moment. I'm hoping that's not gonna be an issue later on, but we'll just have to wait and see.
6 minutes later
Wait, so Hogan just grabbed the laser gun that was being protected by security lasers. And even though his own arm was clearly being touched by the security lasers, nothing actually happened and he's already escaping. Unless those lasers give out silent alarms, then the people who were protecting this gun have incredibly shit security systems. Either way, I'm actually kinda shocked he's getting away with it that easily.
17 minutes later
OK, I didn't think using an inflatable blow-up would actually help you in getting down from a building like that. That was actually kind of impressive.
6 minutes later
So this Japanese kid walks into the toy store, and upon discovering the other kids there, he also discovers his father buried underneath the shelf of toys and assumes that he's already dead. How do you know he's actually dead, though? For all we know, he could be totally unconscious. I just think this kid is jumping to conclusions already. Just saying.
6 minutes later
Hold up! So Chase's car was impounded at the police impound lot. Yet, when Jeremy and his friends are trapped in his car, Jeremy notices the keys are still in the ignition! And yeah, he uses it to start up the car so that they can get away from Wrecks. Why the fuck would anyone leave the keys inside the ignition at an impound lot makes no fucking sense whatsoever!
14 minutes later
Wait, so Rosalie is comparing Jeremy's Dad's secret identity to Clark Kent and Lois Lane, in which he never revealed his secret identity to her because the bad guys would use her as bait to get to him. Except, he actually *did* reveal his identity to her in, I believe, "Superman II". And mind you, that movie came out in 1980. This movie came out 16 years after that. Now either this girl never saw "Superman II", or the writers of this movie seemed to think that Clark Kent would never reveal his identity to anyone he cared about, including Lois Lane. Granted, I understand it's a very trivial and stupid thing to be bitching about, but my inner nerd just needed to comment on that very stupid comparison of hers.
18 minutes later
OK, I've been meaning to ask this for a while now, and seeing as how there's only about 17 minutes left to go in this movie, I may as well ask it now. Is there a reason why Wrecks has a mechanical leg? I know it probably has nothing to do with the movie itself, but I feel like that's something they could still explain, assuming they actually do explain that within the short amount of time left on this movie. I don't think they will, but I still would like to know something about it is all.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "The Secret Agent Club". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Well, I'm gonna say this much. As stupid and as corny as this film is, I actually kinda enjoyed it. Mind you, since I watched it off YouTube, I'm kinda thankful that I don't own a physical copy of it. Because, even though I did sorta enjoy watching this film, I would not keep it for my DVD collection. I just don't think it would be worth holding onto, unless I bought it for really cheap. And even then, I don't think it would even be worth that much.
So anyway, let's just go ahead and start this review off proper here by first discussing the writing. The writing here is really kinda stupid. Now, to be fair, a lot of Hulk Hogan's movies are incredibly stupid and nonsensical. This one is really no exception either, however, I feel this one kinda cranks up it's stupidity by a wee bit. Most of that involves these kids, whom we mostly follow throughout the entire movie. And even though this film does star Hulk Hogan, he really doesn't have a whole lot of screen time here, nor does he have many lines to work with. Which is both a good and bad thing, however, I'll get into all that later when I cover acting. But yeah, we mostly follow these kids, including Chase's son, Jeremy, who all get together to try and find his Dad, after he was apprehended by the bad guys. Bad guys, who I should mention are all incompetent as shit.
In fact, let's actually start with the biggest problem this movie has, when it comes to it's villains. Like I just said, they're all incompetent and stupid as shit. Wrecks is the muscle-head of the group. And on multiple occasions, he's outwitted by the kids on almost every turn. And also, I asked a little earlier if they were ever going to explain why he has a mechanical leg, and they clearly don't. I figured they wouldn't, seeing as how the movie was close to ending at that point, but I figured they would try to work in some kind of plot point as to why he has that leg to begin with. They don't, and the only thing you do learn about his leg is that it makes some annoying noise whenever he walks on it. So yeah, the mystery as to why he has that leg boils down to fuck you, that is why.
And as for our main villain, Eve, she is quite possibly one of the most retarded villains I have ever come across in a family film in a long time. And there's one scene that proved, to me, why she's fucking retarded. Right towards the end of the film, she holds Jeremy hostage and demands that Chase give her the laser gun in exchange for his son. Well, right before he does this, he secretly activates a self-destruct button on the gun, which by itself is completely fucking stupid, but I'll leave that aside for now. Anyway, they make the exchange and she tries to fire the laser gun, only for it to not work and she doesn't know why. She then later finds out that the gun is about to explode, and she doesn't know how to turn it off. Even though she's the one who presented the damn gun at the beginning of the movie to a bunch of people during a demonstration! How the fuck she didn't know all about the gun's features makes her, and also her entire entourage of villains, completely fucking retarded on a level that I haven't seen in a good long while! Christ almighty...
So anyway, setting aside the most incompetent villains in history, what about our main cast? Well, as I already mentioned earlier, Hogan is barely in it for a good chunk of the movie. If I had to make a summarized guess, I believe he's only in it for about half an hour tops, where he's mostly just held hostage by our villains. And as for our kids, well, they're not really all that memorable. You have Jeremy, who seems to have something of a neglectful relationship with his father after the mother died. The movies really does nothing with it beyond that. Then you have Rosalie, who's basically the girl that Jeremy likes. You have Bart, who's basically the fat kid. Sly, the black kid who's also a hacker. Then there's Shigeo, who seems to be something of a racist casting choice, because the movie clearly wants to let you know that he's Japanese and that he speaks Japanese, and he's also good at karate. Yeah, clearly, he's not a racist caricature at all. And normally, I don't really care about this kind of thing, unlike most people who deem things in older films as "problematic". However, since this movie is very blatant about this character, it's clear that they weren't trying to hide it at all.
So anyway, setting aside all that, the characters in this movie are, like I said, not all that memorable. Now to be fair to this movie's cast, and setting aside the obvious racist casting choice, they actually do a decent job on making these characters likable. They're not overly annoying, unlike a lot of kid characters I've seen in other family films of the past. Which I know may not sound like much, but I can at least say that it's a slight step above something like "Mr. Nanny", another Hulk Hogan movie where the two leading kids in that film were annoying as shit. Granted, you could say on how they get inside the villain's base by using toy guns and other kids toys to infiltrate the base is incredibly stupid. But part of me is tempted to let that kind of thing slide, since this film is also catered towards children as well. Mind you, there's quite a bit of product placement in this movie involving the Nerf guns. I'm going to assume someone made a deal with Nerf to advertise their products for this movie and, well, at least Nerf got some free money out of it. So, I guess that's something for them.
Anyway, setting aside the product placement, the writing here as a whole is just about as stupid as you could possibly imagine when it comes to a family film like this. Mind you, I still think there is a little bit of charm to this movie in which I could overlook some of the obvious stupidity. Well, except for the villains, for obvious reasons that I've already talked about. But with that said, let's talk about the acting next. And as for our main child characters, they do a a pretty decent job for the material that they had to work with. The only slight exception to all this is Jeremy's actor, because I clearly believe that, at times, his acting sounds very flaky. And in some cases, he always has this weird smile to his face in a lot of his scenes, especially when he's trying to act down or kinda sad. But it's not all that good. And also, there's a couple of scenes where Hogan's being strapped down and he has some kind of device over his eyes, and the video is playing a looped clip of his son demanding him to confess where the laser gun is. These scenes are incredibly annoying, and his acting, minus being looped on repeat, sounds a little bit forced. Mind you, he's not the worst case of child acting that I've seen, but it's still something that I wanted to mention.
Now as for Hulk Hogan, well, it's kind of mixed bag. Seeing as how he doesn't have very many lines in this movie, I'm going to assume that was possibly done intentionally. Allow me to explain. You see, I've mentioned in the past that Hogan's acting in his movies has always sounded wooden. And this movie is no exception, because his acting is very clearly wooden here. And I believe that, given Hogan's limited acting skills, the filmmakers wanted to take advantage of it by not having him doing very much while the kids take over the lead here. Now one hand, I can see the intention behind it, because Hogan doesn't have much of a range in his acting skills and they didn't want hamper him with too many lines that might make him sound terrible. On the other hand, he *is* still the star of the movie, and I feel like they could've given him more screen time to work with, if they wanted to give him something to do, but also not act out a whole lot of dialogue at the same time. Mind you, my assumption on all this is only a theory. So, you have to take what I said for what it's worth. Regardless, his acting is still wooden here, and I don't see that changing for any of his other movies that I might end up covering. I could be wrong there, but I strongly doubt it.
Anyway, special effects range on having incredibly average-looking CG, especially for a mid-90's movie. Granted, a lot of that is limited to the laser gun in the beginning of the movie, and it's really nothing special at all. There's also a lot of pyrotechnics in this movie as well. Granted, it's not as much as, say, what Michael Bay would put in his movies, or as over the top like Andy Sidaris's "Triple B" series, which I'm still covering at the time that I'm writing this review. But still, they do exist in this movie, and it's just kinda average, really. So, overall, the special effects are nothing to write home about.
Camerawork in this movie is mostly good, save for one panning shot in which Wrecks is getting out of his car. And on the reflection of the car door, you can actually see some of the film crew either crouching or standing clearly in the shot, including one noticeable guy whom was wearing a white T-shirt. How the hell that actually got past editors is beyond me, since that's an obvious case of amateurish camerawork. But aside from that, the camerawork here is still fine. Lighting here is really good. The sound-mixing here is decent. The music here really isn't all that memorable. Including a little bit of rap that played during the ending credits, and it sounded really fucking terrible. So, the music here is mostly below average. I would've said it was fine, though what little I heard from that rap song sounded deducted it from being just okay to really kinda shit.
Now with all that said, when it comes down to it, am I able to recommend "The Secret Agent Club"? Well, if you have kids, then yes. I would say this is perfectly fine for children, because kids aren't gonna notice the obvious flaws this movie has. If you, yourself, are curious to know how Hogan would fare in this movie, well...I guess I could say give it a shot. However, keep it mind that he's not in the movie all that much. Unless you're okay with kids being the main lead over the Hulkster, then you can probably just skip this, since there's not much here to work with, at least as far as I can when talking about a movie starring Hluk Hogan. Still though, I do think that it's worth at least a single viewing. I don't know if I would recommend a full physical purchase, unless if you can find it dirt cheap somewhere. And I mean like *really* cheap, something close to a dollar. If not, then you can probably just skip this movie entirely. I myself did enjoy it, but I wouldn't say it's worth getting for my DVD collection. Speaking of which, I still have "Suburban Commando" sitting there to where I can see it. So, I'm gonna go and watch that next, because it's been a good long while since I last watched it, and it would be a nice film to see to honor the late Hulk Hogan anyways.
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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