terrywatt375

A movie I liked a little bit better when it was initially released (and I was in my early 20's) than I did upon a recent rewatching, although I basically still feel the same about it now as I did then in terms of strengths and weaknesses.

On the plus side, and this is probably more relevant now than it was then, The First Power by default of when it was made has a lot of location shots and a lot of practical stunts/effects. I say by default because back in 1989 (when I'm assuming it was filmed) the technology was such that a movie production couldn't just green screen everything and punch it all in during post-production. Which feeds into the primary strengths of the film, those being the stunts and effects, more so the stunts.

The main weakness with The First Power for me has always been the plot, which becomes more convoluted and sillier as the movie goes on. The premise starts out simply enough then becomes clouded with the introduction of a psychic and a nun who is knowledgeable about "The First Power" which is resurrection. It's all a bunch of pseudo religious mumbo jumbo that is crammed in quickly via bursts of dialogue between action scenes.

The casting is solid. Lou Diamond Phillips (I always thought he had such a cool name!) turns in a capable performance as Detective Logan. Tracy Griffith is adequate enough as Tess Seaton, a girl with psychic abilities who helps Logan track down the killer and basically functions as The Damsel In Distress. Jeff Kober is eerily and malevolently creepy as Satan worshipper and serial killer Patrick Channing.

Overall, not bad, even 35 years after it's initial theatrical release. A lot of storyline misdirection via situational red herrings (flashbacks, 'is it a dream' sequences', jump-scare surprises) which kept me engaged. Just over 90 minutes, so it wasn't overlong. 6.5 stars. Basically, good enough back in 1990 for a one-off viewing.

For me, being in my early twenties when this flick was originally released, I can still recall the original context of the times vs the posthumous upgrade Rapid Fire got after Brandon Lee was killed on the set of The Crow.

The original context being that Brandon Lee wasn't yet a movie star - even within the limitations of the action genre - either when Rapid Fire was first released or even at the time of his death. He was basically thought of at the time as "the son of Bruce Lee" and I'd wager dollars to donuts that most of the people who went on to enjoy what he did in The Crow when that movie finally hit theaters in the late spring of 1994 had MAYBE seen Rapid Fire via a vhs rental or cable tv when it hit the home video market in February 1993, a month before his death in March of 1993. Rapid Fire wasn't a box office smash when it hit theaters in August of 1992, even when put up alongside the martial arts influenced action flicks such contemporaries as Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme were putting out circa 1992. It also wasn't as if Brandon Lee had been in a string of high-profile action films PRIOR to Rapid Fire, either.

All the above is not hating on Brandon Lee, either. It's merely illuminating the reality of Lee's career and the times re: Rapid Fire's theatrical release. I'd also be willing to wager even further that Rapid Fire was probably viewed by more people after he had already passed away than when it was in theaters when he was still alive, during that period of time between his death in March of 1993 and the release of The Crow in May of 1994, as a video rental or on a cable tv premium movie channel such as Cinemax. I know, I know, doubtless some will say "no way, man! I liked Brandon Lee as far back as Showdown in Little Tokyo!" Yeah, well, Showdown in Little Tokyo made $2 million in 1991 worldwide at the box office and wasn't exactly lighting up cash registers at the local Blockbusters when it went to home video in 1992.

All of which is neither here nor there beyond the mere chronology of it.

Anyway, I've always kinda liked Rapid Fire - I'm one of those who saw it via a home video rental during that period between his death and The Crow's theatrical release - but in a mixed bag kind of way. Which is to say, equal parts silliness, dumb action flick cliches and some decent martial arts action movie sequences.

Let's see. First the silliness. Most of which comes via situational plot holes/leaps of logic, none of which was unique to Rapid Fire in terms of early 1990's action movies. Which is to say, Rapid Fire was hardly the only action movie in the early 90's that was barely plausible along the lines of portraying scenarios that were the least bit believable with regard to human beings actually being able to do the things being shown onscreen. But it is helpful to remember that these were intentionally designed as over-the-top, fantastical flicks.

Even with that being said ...yeah, there are more than a few (which is to say, a LOT of) moments in Rapid Fire where you watch various stunts and are all too aware that these things only happen in the movies. There's also some laughably silly editing choices, such as the BIG LOVE SCENE between Brandon Lee's character ('creatively' named Jake Lo ...boy, the screenwriters definitely earned their pay brainstorming THAT character name up!) and a female police detective, which makes ZERO sense in terms of their relationship up to that point nor does splicing shots of them in bed in between scenes of a prison murder, all accompanied by a really third-rate heavy metal hair ballad tune of the type that was already out of fashion in late 1991 when the movie was being filmed.

Even more silly than that was the performance of Nick Mancuso as one of the primary villains. Mancuso plays the Italian mob boss of the Chicago branch of the mafia. Sure, Mancuso wouldn't be the first actor to play an Italian mob boss in a movie. However, the way Mancuso plays it ...I mean, to this DAY I still can't tell if Mancuso was unintentionally overacting or just didn't give a toss and deliberately hammed up the Italian accent to see if the director would either ask him to tone it down or simply let him get away with it.

I also recall thinking at the time all those years ago that despite the overblown nature of the plot, Brandon Lee was a likable, affable actor onscreen and clearly had an impressive degree of ability with his physicality as pertaining to the martial arts scenes. He didn't move like his father did, nor did he particularly resemble him in terms of general build or even his physical features. Which is to say, had he been billed as Brandon Smith and nobody knew he was Bruce Lee's son, what he did in Rapid Fire wouldn't by default elicit a response along the lines of thinking "this guy reminds me of Bruce Lee." In point of fact, when the 1990's dawned, Bruce Lee wasn't even really being talked about beyond the obvious general influence his films had by way of introducing martial arts style fighting to action movies. That 1993 Dragon: The Bruce Lee story biopic, which gave Bruce Lee's posthumous career a jolt in a way that it hadn't seen since 1978's Game of Death release, hadn't come out yet prior to 1992's Rapid Fire. The net effect of all this, then and now, is that when I watch(ed) Rapid Fire I wasn't constantly thinking "this is Bruce Lee's kid." As I said, they didn't look alike, talk alike, move similarly, etc. One was aware of the parentage on a factual level, but Brandon wasn't a Bruce Lee clone onscreen.

Looking back now, over thirty years later, Rapid Fire is what it always was. Which is to say, an at times effective and at times ridiculous early 1990's simple popcorn action movie. But, well, I'm partial to those movies (nostalgia, nostalgia, whatever ...hey, at least Rapid Fire had real explosions and real stunts undertaken by real people in real time as opposed to a bunch of green screened in cgi), so 7 out of 10 from me for Rapid Fire.

This movie generated a fair amount of publicity when it was first released, mostly due to the context of the times.

Back in 1990, Mickey Rourke was coming off a decade-long streak of memorable movies released throughout the 1980's. As an actor, Rourke was a bit of an anomaly then, in that he certainly wasn't a Hollywood pretty boy type. He had handsomely rugged features, a rugged, streetwise swagger and didn't shy away from movies and roles in which his characters weren't portrayed in a favorable light. When you look back at the movies he was in, especially the last couple years of the 1980's, films like Barfly, Johnny Handsome. Homeboy & A Prayer For The Dying definitely weren't roles an actor overly concerned with promoting a positive/non-controversial image would have taken.

According to Rourke, it was around that point in his career that he became generally disenchanted with the movie business in terms of the roles he was being offered, the politics of schmoozing with the heads of movie studios and the media and all of the public relations machinery (giving interviews, appearing on talk shows) that one needed to undertake in order to become a movie star. For Rourke, all along he just wanted to be an effective actor and appear in interesting films and those two desires were seemingly at odds with being a movie star appearing in Hollywood blockbusters.

Sadly, at this point Rourke began taking work in movies just for the paycheck and turning in halfhearted performances. Wild Orchid was the beginning of this downturn.

In the late 1980's, Rourke became smitten with a model named Carre Otis. As to if this infatuation began before Wild Orchid began production or started during filming is unclear. Anyway, Wild Orchid concerns a young female lawyer (Otis) who is required to travel to Rio de Janeiro to help close a business deal. Rourke plays a mysterious millionaire involved with said deal. That's about as intricate as the plot gets.

There are more than a few shades of Rourke's mid-1980's erotic drama 9 & 1/2 Weeks to be found in 1990's Wild Orchid. Mostly in terms of various scenes depicting sexual voyeurism, confronting sexual taboos and inhibitions, etc. The difference being that with 9 & 1/2 Weeks we had Rourke turning in a decent performance acting-wise along with Kim Basinger and some stylized cinematography via director Adrian Lyne. With Wild Orchid, Rourke's performance for most of the movie comes off as lazily uninspired and Rourke appears to have spent a bit too much time pre-filming lounging in a tanning booth by way of 'researching' for his role, the result giving his face a laugh-inducing orangish pallor. And Carre Otis, while certainly pleasing to look at, was spectacularly inept as an actress. Even within the limits of professional models turned actresses, Otis comes across incapable of doing little else other than walking as directed and casting an expressionless gaze. These abilities are doubtless useful for a model walking a runway or posing for a photographer, not so much for an actress required to emote and speak.

Really, outside of a few shots of Rio pleasing to look at, the only aspect of Wild Orchid that ended up being noteworthy were the humping scenes between Rourke and Otis that comprise the (no pun intended) climax of the movie. There was the urban legend propagated at the time that those scenes were so racy the film was threatened by the MPAA to have an X rating attached to it if certain elements weren't removed. While Rourke and Otis apparently sizzled offscreen, onscreen in Wild Orchid they come off as a couple of jackrabbits comically bumping and grinding. Literally laugh-inducing rather than stimulating. The flick, despite all the media hype, made only a small profit at the box office once the word of mouth as to how awful rather than sexy it was got around.

Anyway, 6 out of 10 stars from me, mostly because I like bad movies. Particularly movies that regardless of genre are clearly taking themselves seriously, come up short despite the seriousness and everyone involved is seemingly oblivious of the failure. Yeah, I'm a snarky schmuck, but whatever. Plus, Wild Orchid (along with the remake of Desperate Hours) is one of the last movies Rourke made before he tried to reignite his long-dormant amateur boxing career in 1991. The result of that early 1990's foray into boxing resulting in Rourke's face getting pummeled, and the many (too many) subsequent plastic surgeries that slowly but surely made his once ruggedly handsome looks freakishly grotesque. Thus, Wild Orchid - in a silly way - sort of closes out the era of Rourke when he was at his best turning in the bulk of the best work he ever did in movies (yeah, yeah, 2005's Sin City and 2008's The Wrestler ...two good flicks in a sea of post-1990 b-grade drek). Good old Mickey. They don't make leading men like him anymore.