Auf der Spur des Terrors

OK, I grew up in the 80s. Corey Feldman and Corey Haim were considered the young guys to see on the screen at one point. You won't know why if you see this movie. Basically, it looks like one of those movies thrown together to get little teenie bopper girls to watch just because it has a "cute guy" in it. I highly recommend skipping this one. Even my preteen son didn't like it. I bought it sight-unseen since it was only $5.50 and I thought my son would enjoy it. He liked Agent Cody Banks, and I figured this would be -- not as good -- but passable. Anybody want a free DVD? Watched only once. ? OK, no takers, and I don't blame you. Read the back. The blurb is better than the movie. Then you can at least not be ignorant of the fact that Corey Haim made more than one bomb in his short career.

Corey Haim's big break was most definitely in the eighties. He made a big impact on our hearts in the classic Lucas, he made a so-so appearance in the body swapping fiasco Dream a Little Dream, but my favorite was without a doubt the teen driving comedy License to Drive. That's my favorite thing he's done. In the nineties, Haim had been victim to a molestation and a drug addict in previous years. His work had become few and far between. Some of his worst stuff came into play like the sequel to Dream a Little Dream 2 and the God-awful comedy Busted. This was before things got real ugly.

The Double O Kid was a direct-to-DVD film that isn't as bad as people say. It's amusing at most, but nothing in the field of memorable or even good. It's a typical secret agent action/comedy. Lance Elliot (Haim) is a seventeen year old intern. When he is forced to rush a package to LA, he figures out that a millionaire virus man and a henchwoman need that package and will stop at nothing to get it. Lance meets Melinda (Eggert), a sexy woman who has fallen into play with Lance, and they both try to outwit the boss at his own game in a fitting end scene.

The film is not very creative, and does almost nothing to morph the bad guy, bad things genre. But we do have a fair amount of decent scenes, and Haim doesn't disappoint. This is also one of the three films both Eggert and Haim appeared in together. They had dated for a long period of time, and had roles side by side in this, Just One of the Girls, and Blown Away (all of which I reviewed). It may be cliché and stock, but in points it's satisfying and entertaining.

Starring: Corey Haim, Nicole Eggert, John Rhys-Davies, and Brigitte Nielsen. Directed by: Duncan McLachlan.

Silly film, but then again, I think being silly was the point. While it is silly, it's not well done silly.

The Paul family, responsible for a number of awful films over the years (like "Baby Geniuses"), were responsible for this equally awful spy comedy. To be sure, the Pauls were able to round up a once in a lifetime cast - besides Corey Haim, the movie also boasts Brigitte Nielsen (whose name is misspelled in the closing credits), John Rhys-Davies, Wallace Shawn, Nicole Eggert, Anne Francis, and Karen Black (though some of these actors only make a brief appearance.) However, this cast is the only thing interesting about the movie. It's a pretty cheap affair, looking very tacky and undernourished in every shot. Worse than the production values is the script. The script is extremely padded out, with the hero making a number of stupid and/or illogical decisions in order to stretch things out to ninety-five minutes. This may explain why director Duncan McLachlan seems unable to add spark and action to make the enterprise lively and engaging, especially in the boring climax that just goes on and on long past the breaking point. Even kids will find the movie extremely underwhelming.

Extremely amateurish production that reunites a bunch of one-hit wonder character actors who were moderately famous in the 80s.

Brigette Nielsen plays her normal femme fatale with a short haircut. There's a scene where she's in a jacuzzi wearing an evening gown - I guess they didn't pay her enough to show much flesh.

Vizzinni from The Pricess Bride plays his normal role - a short intelligent villain who's squirrleyness nevertheless gets him into trouble. Again, it seems the studio went with a no-frills package with him, as there's a point where he clearly wants to say "inconveicable," but he just says "impossible" instead.

John Rhys-Davis gives a riveting performance as fat guy in a suit with a funky accent engaged in shady business - again, a pretty normal role for him throughout the 80s.

All of this is spearheaded by an ageing Corey Haim, who clearly couldn't transition from his character role of teenage rapscallion to adult and here, at the age of 21 in 1992, he's about to fall off the cliff of fame into the ravine of obscurity.

The plot is nonsense. Haim's character is some intern for secret agents and he's charged with delivering a red herring to LA where the cinematographer takes over and works overtime taking shots of LA beaches, the LA zoo, and the graffitti-infested facade of other LA landmarks. Along the way Haim kisses a lot of random girls and dresses himself up like a Batman villain updated for a 90's audience.

The production values are just about as low as it can get for professional productions from USA. At one point Haim gets chased around by a marauding pack of kids playing street hockey and they tumble around threateningly around him. Most of the characters seem to be untrained actors, with the only minor performance of any note being the Haim's brother character at the beginning of the movie - he really looks indignant that Haim stole his bike. You can feel the rage.

A 5 for being mildly entertaining and having some effective scenes of violence. You might enjoy it, but not for its professionalism or artistry. It's the lowest of the low in film entertainment.

All of the major characters here would go on to wallow in the 90's as has-beens from the 80's.

Honourable Mentions: Detective Casanachas en Acapulco (1994). Veteran film actor Alfonso Zayas' pathetic denoument. It's very reminiscent of this movie - low production values, extras used to save money for bit characters, famous character actors reduced to a shriveled existence, and the cinematographer picking up most of the slack with irrelevant shots of some famous locale.