Watchers Reborn

Although not a genius film, and certainly one that passes from cliche to cliche, there are some wonderful elements to it. Namely, between the cliches are flashes of genius and brilliance which buoy the story and make it watchable. The actors are not particularly great, however LISA WILCOX is the real star, her acting is credible and intelligent and she is a delight to watch.

Believe it or not, I have now seen all four of the Roger Corman-produced WATCHERS films. The best of the series was the mediocre WATCHERS 2, though as mediocre as it was, it looks like a masterpiece compared to this fourth entry. Things don't start well with the first few minutes seemingly consisting of stock footage, and things just get worse from that point on. Mark Hamill (who was one of the producers - did he really think this project was worthy?) looks and sounds very tired, like he had been sleeping in an alley for a week before coming onto the set. Actually, Hamill isn't really to blame, because the screenplay has various plot points and plot turns you have seen in the previous WATCHERS movies. There isn't really anything new here, which will make you wonder why Corman decided to do the same old things once again, especially since it looks like he had less money to spend than in the previous films. Even if you were involved in the production of the movie, there's no compelling reason to watch these end results.

I know they're not great, but I have enjoyed all four of the Watchers movies to some extent, each film piling on the hokey B-movie silliness and delivering some reasonable gore. Following in the footsteps of Corey Haim (the first film), Marc Singer (Watchers II) and Wings Hauser (Watchers III), Watchers Reborn sees Mark Hamill as L. A. police detective Murphy, who encounters Einstein the intelligent Golden Retriever, who is being tracked by a savage beast called the Outsider, dog and monster created in a laboratory by the government to act as a search and destroy team. Lisa Wilcox plays Grace, the scientist who created the super-smart dog and monster combo, and who reveals the truth about the experiment to Murphy.

After the very daft Predator-inspired jungle shenanigans of Watchers III, Watchers Reborn returns to the formula of the first two films, with Grace and Murphy on the run from both the Outsider and the government agents who will stop at nothing to keep the experiment a secret. Director John Carl Buechler (predominantly a special make-up FX artist) keeps up a reasonable pace, Hamill and Wilcox are decent enough, and Buechler's creature effects are craptabulous but fun, the monster looking like a man in a fancy dress shop gorilla costume wearing a rubber werewolf mask.

5/10 - follow the oranges!!!

Man, Roger Corman certainly got his moneys worth out of the film rights to the Dean Koontz novel WATCHERS. This, the fourth entry in the series, continues the saga of Einstein the Golden Retriever and his mutant buddy/stalker The Outsider. The Outsider breaks out of a Government facility where he and Einstein are being tested on. The duo are on the loose and The Outsider kills off a zoo security guard. Det. Murphy (Mark Hamill) is on the case and quickly discovers the dog and scientist Grace (Lisa Wilcox) snooping around. The mean Feds (led by Stephen Macht) are also on the case and want to kill everyone associated with the project to keep it hush-hush. Naturally, that means kill them in public.

Despite an offer of new ideas (REBORN), this is the same ol' WATCHERS. Man finds dog. Dog is smart. Monster chases dog. Dog saves lives. The end. And what does it say about a film when the best actor is a dog? I'm not kidding. Einstein, who gets no screen credit, displays better emotions than Hamill ever does. Director John Carl Buechler keeps things moving fast enough and the kills are all gory so I guess it has that going for it. The end tries to go for a sympathetic Frankenstein's monster twist but it isn't working when your monster looks this bad. "Pet me," he cries at one point to great comic effect. Wilcox, who played Alice in ELM STREET 4 & 5, sports blonde hair in this and looks like a dead ringer for Barbara Campton. As always, Macht gives a solid turn as the heel. He must be filed in all Hollywood Rolodexes under "Bad Guy."

A terrible movie here, folks. First of all, it's hard to review this film objectively. I REALLY enjoyed the book (one of my favourite Dean Koontz novels), and I'm way too much of a Mark Hamill fan (regardless of what everybody tells me). But this was a uniquely weak film. I've mentioned before that films with the potential for good/greatness are much more disappointing than those that were empty from the beginning. This is, what, the tenth attempt to make Koontz's "Watchers" into a movie, and again, somebody somewhere screwed up. I mean, what is the problem with this book? I can't tell you, except that even after several other tries, this one is particularly bad. The acting was sub-par, the violence hokey and unnecessary, the special effects laughable, and the editing was as bad as a sixth-grader with two VCRs. There were a couple of moments when I thought, "Wait a minute, maybe this won't suck," which made it all the worse when it did. "Nightmare on Elm Street 4 & 5"'s Lisa Wilcox wasn't spectacularly awful, just awful. The pathetic-but-didn't-have-to-be monster was never scary, and often so poorly done that I longed for another Ewok movie. I guess the once-great Mark Hamill should stick with cartoon voice-overs.