Anything starring ex-wrestler / former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura gotta be worth your weight in gold. After appearing as support in such films 'Predator', 'The Running Man and 'Ricochet', his first leading role happens to be in something rather lesser; 'Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe'. It's a low-rent, corny b-grade sci-fi chase get-up in the form of those efforts done in the late 80s / early 90s ('The Hidden', 'The Peacekeeper' and 'Dark Angel') with certain elements of 'The Terminator' (1984) obviously featuring.
Abraxas, an alien officer comes to earth to track down a renegade who plans to impregnate a woman with a child, which would be an actual ticking time bomb waiting to explode if caught in the wrong hands. He captures the renegade, but is too late to stop the pregnancy. Instead of destroying the threat, he spares the mother and baby's life. Times passes and the renegade escapes and heads back to earth to find the child, but Abraxas is soon on his trail by trying to get to the child first.
It's best that you just go with the flow. Don't look too hard into it, as it won't be impossible to get some sort enjoyment out of it with its unintentional mocking and bizarre nature (like the birth scene). Ventura rocks, but something about his burly physic not matching up to his well-mannered delivery of the material raises some chuckles with his almost-like second-rate Terminator impression. At times the chewy dialogues (honestly it was Shakespeare stuff) seemed too much of a mouth-fall for the two outer-space guests. A robotic Sven-Ole Thorsen forcefully played the evil foe, but Ventura has an sincerely likable air to him that makes him rather appealing in the role. Marjorie Bransfield is decent in her part. Also appearing in very minor support is James Belushi (who has a ridiculous conversation with Bransfield's character) and the dependable Michael Copeman.
Damien Lee (b-grade actor/writer/director) manages to make the production look better technically than its budget would allow. Sure the minimal special effects and (out of place slow-motion) action set-pieces are low-scale, but modestly crafted. It's well-photographed and the soundtrack is a flavoured sample of swiftly soothing jazz (odd I know) and electrifying rock. The flabby script is constantly stiff drivel and the screenplay while focused is still quite pedestrian (with a meandering midsection), but whenever Ventura's narrative voice-over pops up it amuses. The supposed humour on the other hand, (which the script tries for in parts) is dumb and falls flat, because they're not the moments you'll laugh at. Talk about a dud of an ending.
Undistinguishable, but better than expected camp that has some heart.
