Shadowchaser - Progettato per uccidere

This movie is so much fun. A straight-to-video action movie that borrows plot elements from other films but adds charms all its own. You can criticize the script for not being terribly original but it's filled with memorable lines delivered with gusto by a good cast. The plot is brilliant so prepare yourself. A group of terrorists, headed by a Lundgrenesque android named Romulus, take over a hospital. Among the hostages is the daughter of the President (played by 44 year-old Meg Foster). The FBI is helpless to do anything so they decide to unfreeze the architect of the building. You see, the architect committed a crime and in this world criminals are cryogenically frozen. Well, somehow they goof up and unfreeze the wrong guy. Instead of the architect they get former pro-football player Martin Kove! He plays along so he doesn't have to be frozen again. Basically, the rest of the film is Kove "yippee-ki-yay"-ing his way through the hospital to rescue the hostages and inevitably fight the android. Look, I think we all know this isn't The English Patient. It's not even Die Hard. But for fans of popcorn action movies, this is a real treat. It's a movie full of quotable dialogue, fun clichés, and mindless action. It's a damn good time if you can relax and enjoy movies that aren't meant to be art.

Appearing at the height of the director's popularity, thanks to the inescapable, if short-lived, "surrealist action" phenomenon, Project: Shadowcaster (also know as Shadowcaster) is also the most stereotypically Eyres-ish of John Eyres's films, filled with state of the art special effects, surreal environments, complex characters, and oblique commentary on American life (we wouldn't expect any less!). As such, it will leave some viewers raving, others scratching their noodle in frustration. Staring the Martin Kove as Desilva a thawed out football player in an Orwellian American future should be enough to buy ten copies of this rare piece of art history. If Kove and Eyres isn't enough, keep in mind that Kove experimented with sensory deprivation meditations and self-controlled brainwashing techniques pioneered by the church of Scientology in addition to spending weeks along side Dan Marino to prepare for the role of Desilva. Shadowcaster takes "surreal action" to the next level and redefines the word "touchdown!"

A diabolical mashup of the above films, almost totally without merit. Meg Foster and Joss Ackland do their best with the clichéd script, but even they can't save this movie. Kove is not much cop as a leading man, and Frank Zag makes for a lousy Arnie impersonator.

In Project: Shadowchaser, we find ourselves in a rather brazen Die Hard rip-off with accidental hero Martin Kove (Cobra Kai).

Everything takes place almost originally in the Naka... ok, some skyscraper. Odd terrorists who just want to extort money take hostages. But that's not all, there's also a good pinch of Terminator and Escape from L. A., because a runaway killer android as the villain and a president's daughter among the hostages are also included in the script.

The ludicrous plan to rescue the First Daughter and neutralize the cyborg: get the architect of the skyscraper out of jail and send him in. Huh? And the government even fails and sends the wrong guy in. Oops.

The "hero" doesn't do a bad job at all and climbs dutifully through umpteen John McClane memorial ventilation shafts. Sigh. But even he can't save the bad script and formulaic production.

I rented this one, and glad I did. Martin Kove is unfrozen(!) to battle terrorists that have taken over a high-rise hospital. Martin Kove has this easy-going, self-deprecating way about him in this film, so he basically makes the movie. The cinematography is really odd, perhaps it was shot on high-quality video, not film? Plot is an outright Die-Hard rip-off, with some unnecessary sci-fi twists. Despite the flaws, it's still kind of fun if you don't expect too much.