Overly ambitious Sci-Fi/Porn
Sci-fi is a specialty of Brad Armstrong for Wicked Pictures, and this way overrated "Euphoria" (title reflects so-called critics' reactions) earned a decent budget and ultimately 9-day shooting schedule. But the result is far from the Adult Cinema milestone so many of Brad's features get tagged with.
Its main drawback is common to many sci-fi movies, which have yet to fully realize the potential of sci-fi literature, "Dune" the most obvious example. I once interviewed, over 30 years ago, a producer who was prepping to shoot a 3-feature, back-to-back adaptation of Asimov's classic The Foundation trilogy -the material George Lucas was unable to option when he shot "Star Wars" instead back in 1976, and this is a project on a similar scale.
It emerges as a typical post-Apocalyptic tale, replete with costuming left over from that famous Kevin Coaster disaster "Waterworld", and obvious influences from a host of both Hollywood, "Mad Max" and Italian B-movies. Holding it all together are two eminently talented actresses, not just sex workers out of Chatsworth but bona fide actresses: Sydnee Steele as the heroine and a striking (in black wig) Ava Vincent as villainess.
Mike Horner is entertainingly hammy as the mad doctor of the piece, using Steele as his guinea pig as he experiments with an experimental drug U-4, to create a state in the taker of euphoria, not just sex (which is the main point of this XXX film) but a raising of consciousness. There's plenty of sex on screen with a well-chosen cast, so what's to complain about.
Simply put, the script by the late David Aaron Clark, as embellished by Brad, is filled with turgid, incomprehensible expository dialog, which even Horner has trouble spitting out without stumbling. Since the viewer, including sci-fi buffs like myself, has zero interest in listening to this mumbo-jumbo Brad should have jettisoned most if not all of it. Or taken the expedient route Ken Russell did for his only big-budget movie "Altered States" when he conflicted with screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky: Ken had his cast including William Hurt and Blair Brown recite the dialog at breakneck speed as if they had time-traveled back into a vintage Howard Hawks movie like "His Girl Friday".
As it stands, the endless dialog overemphasizes the pretentiousness of the project, making it almost as silly as Brad's similar but awful "Underworld". An overblown orgy scene in which basically several individual sex scenes are merged in 3-ring circus fashion in a futuristic night club is typical of the bloating that has made Brad the George Stevens of porn (the great director whose earlier crisp movies later gave way to elephatine proeductions like "Giant" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told". I enjoyed seeing the "girls only" stunning big- breaster Tanya Danielle opposite April in the orgy footage, but she gets lost in the shuffle while Brad insists on throwing in some trendy Fetish content involving speculum and other medical equipment kink.
So Ava Vincent's fine performance is wasted, and perhaps only Steele emerges unscathed, as she's the most reliable performer in Brad's (as well as working for Michael Raven elsewhere) troupe. Most recently Brad in his longterm (20 years-plus) contract with Wicked has been reduced by changing audience tastes and dwindling budgets to sci-fi on a shoestring, as evidenced by his recent all-sex, lousy release "Sexbots". It's poetic justice after the waste of so-called "blockbusters" like "Euphoria" -replete with its self-congratulatory Bonus Disk.
Its main drawback is common to many sci-fi movies, which have yet to fully realize the potential of sci-fi literature, "Dune" the most obvious example. I once interviewed, over 30 years ago, a producer who was prepping to shoot a 3-feature, back-to-back adaptation of Asimov's classic The Foundation trilogy -the material George Lucas was unable to option when he shot "Star Wars" instead back in 1976, and this is a project on a similar scale.
It emerges as a typical post-Apocalyptic tale, replete with costuming left over from that famous Kevin Coaster disaster "Waterworld", and obvious influences from a host of both Hollywood, "Mad Max" and Italian B-movies. Holding it all together are two eminently talented actresses, not just sex workers out of Chatsworth but bona fide actresses: Sydnee Steele as the heroine and a striking (in black wig) Ava Vincent as villainess.
Mike Horner is entertainingly hammy as the mad doctor of the piece, using Steele as his guinea pig as he experiments with an experimental drug U-4, to create a state in the taker of euphoria, not just sex (which is the main point of this XXX film) but a raising of consciousness. There's plenty of sex on screen with a well-chosen cast, so what's to complain about.
Simply put, the script by the late David Aaron Clark, as embellished by Brad, is filled with turgid, incomprehensible expository dialog, which even Horner has trouble spitting out without stumbling. Since the viewer, including sci-fi buffs like myself, has zero interest in listening to this mumbo-jumbo Brad should have jettisoned most if not all of it. Or taken the expedient route Ken Russell did for his only big-budget movie "Altered States" when he conflicted with screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky: Ken had his cast including William Hurt and Blair Brown recite the dialog at breakneck speed as if they had time-traveled back into a vintage Howard Hawks movie like "His Girl Friday".
As it stands, the endless dialog overemphasizes the pretentiousness of the project, making it almost as silly as Brad's similar but awful "Underworld". An overblown orgy scene in which basically several individual sex scenes are merged in 3-ring circus fashion in a futuristic night club is typical of the bloating that has made Brad the George Stevens of porn (the great director whose earlier crisp movies later gave way to elephatine proeductions like "Giant" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told". I enjoyed seeing the "girls only" stunning big- breaster Tanya Danielle opposite April in the orgy footage, but she gets lost in the shuffle while Brad insists on throwing in some trendy Fetish content involving speculum and other medical equipment kink.
So Ava Vincent's fine performance is wasted, and perhaps only Steele emerges unscathed, as she's the most reliable performer in Brad's (as well as working for Michael Raven elsewhere) troupe. Most recently Brad in his longterm (20 years-plus) contract with Wicked has been reduced by changing audience tastes and dwindling budgets to sci-fi on a shoestring, as evidenced by his recent all-sex, lousy release "Sexbots". It's poetic justice after the waste of so-called "blockbusters" like "Euphoria" -replete with its self-congratulatory Bonus Disk.
- lor_
- 28 jun 2017