Impostor or; The Rising Cost of Impostage

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve tackled a film review on this glacial site so I guess it’s time I took a running start and tackled another turd again. Here we go!

A long time ago in a feces-encrusted theater in Burbank, Lori and I saw a trailer for an upcoming flick called Impostor starring Loo-tenant Dan and Madelyn (clothes… what clothes?) Stowe based on a story by Phillip K. Dick (he of ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’/Bladerunner fame) about Sinise’s character (shame on you if you didn’t get the Gump reference… in fact just get the hell out! You heard me!) being framed as an assassin of some sort in the typically Dick-ian (I just can’t bring myself to say ‘Dickish’) dystopian future full of blue light, garbage, and steam all over the place.

It looked vaguely intriguing yet was pretty undecipherable and we both kinda figured, "What the hell? It’s got ‘Mother’ from ‘A Midnight Clear’ and a chick who’s notorious for stripping in virtually every movie she’s ever made… why not?"

Well then the damned thing just up and did a Peter Pan right in front of us and disappeared from sight and/or memory.

About two YEARS later we went and paid good money for another turdfest and what do we see in the trailers? You guessed it; Impostor. Same trailer. Same cast. Same reaction. We wondered; "What the hell? Where did it go for two years?" Anyway… that was the last we saw or heard of it again. I think this all started sometime in ’95 or ’96 (yes, smartass… that’s 1995 or 1996, not 1895 or 1896. Jeez, I’m tellin’ ya!).

Then last night Netflix sent the fershlugginer (you may have noticed my love of that non-word. If you don’t get it you’ve obviously never read any Mad Magazines prior to 1984) to us. I guess Lori had noticed the title in their database and figured, as we had twice before, "Why not?"

Well here’s why not.

Okay, baldly synopsized (no snickering from the Peanut Gallery!) the thing goes like this:
Earth has been attacked in the middle of the 21st century by the Centauri and lots o’ folks is daid. Loo-tenant Dan’s dad is one of them. He grows up and becomes an Oppenhiemer-type of weapons design genius who has created some sort of weapon of mass destruction that should give us poor backwards human types the ultimate opportunity to go and kick some Centauri butt back across the 4.whatever light years to the Centauri homeworld and put a stop to the interstellar shenanigans.

But before he can finish his science project a Gubmint ‘bad guy’ (is there any other kind in Hollywood?) played by Vincent D’onofrio comes along and claims that he (Loo-tenant Dan, that is) is really a Centauri replicant (Phil Dick… remember?) who is an exact copy of the real Loo-tenant Dan, sent here by the aliens to assassinate the Chancellor of Earth.

So all hell breaks loose and lots of fighting/running/shooting/swearing/sweating and other movie kinds of stuff happens, starring an astonishingly complete cast of Hollywood’s B and C-grade actors and extras. The sheer number of nameless faces that you’ve seen in literally hundreds of movies and TV shows that you see again in this flick is brain-deadening. Some of the background players actually went on to get higher profile work like Connie Neilson, Mekhi Pfeiffer (or however in the hell the dude spells it) and the greyish black guy from CSI but most are just there to remind you that even B and C-grade actors gotta eat.

Anyhow, long story short… Loo-tenant Dan figures out that the alien sent to assassinate the Chancellor must have met some sort of grisly end before ‘copying’ him (if you rent it pay attention to ‘the fire’) and goes to find the crashed ship with his doctor wife (Stowe, who I have to add is actually about five years past her ‘best if used by’ date in this particular flick) and is followed by about 18,000 other Gubmint baddies with real machine guns and plastic helmets that were (I kid you not) borrowed from ‘Starship Troopers’).

I won’t blow the ending for you (though it kinda blows all on it’s own) but there’s a twist, then there’s an explosion, and then a bunch of names scroll up the screen before you realize, "Oh… it’s over? Huh."

About that time is when you want to look at the special features section of the DVD and check out the "original short film". It’s basically the entire flick minus about 45 minutes of absolutely inconsequential characters and action that pretty much serve only to stretch this thing out to feature length. Apparently the whole story was originally intended to be part of an anthology movie like "Cat’s Eye" or "Creepshow". Honestly, the short version isn’t perfect either but it’s really more enjoyable than the full-length feature if only for the fact that it wastes less of your time.

Anywhoo… go ahead and rent it if you want, of course. It’s not really a bad movie. But that’s part of the problem. Really great movies are, well… great. Really bad movies can be fun. But flicks like this one just sort of lay there and make some indistinct noises while the experience goes from ‘okay’ to ‘oh hell… just finish it off already, will you?’

Maybe next time I’ll just go ahead and review something I liked.

Believe it or not it happens!

(photos courtesy of www.rottentomatoes.com)