{"id":3853,"date":"2024-09-06T03:47:19","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T03:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3853"},"modified":"2024-10-13T18:18:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:18:33","slug":"eliminators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/06\/eliminators\/","title":{"rendered":"Eliminators"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Eliminators<\/strong> (1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Empire\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, mild sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Manoogian\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bob Summers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mac Ahlberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 31, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Andrew Prine, Denise Crosby, Patrick Reynolds, Conan Lee, Roy Dotrice, Peter Schrum, Peggy Mannix, Fausto Bara, Tad Horino, Luis Lorenzo, Pepe Moreno, Charly Bravo.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $4.6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0No two ways about it, Eliminators<\/strong> is a bad movie. But boy, is it fun! Where else will you find a cyborg (a \u201cmandroid\u201d to be exact), a hot female scientist, a riverboat captain and a ninja teaming up to fight a time-travelling madman? This one is MST3K ready even though it came out nearly three years before the show premiered (November \u201988).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Prior to my recent viewing, I hadn\u2019t seen this clunky sci-fi-actioner since it came out on video in September \u201986. It was released theatrically between Troll and TerrorVision at two-week intervals. All three movies were produced by Empire Pictures, the low-budget studio responsible for titles like Trancers, The Dungeonmaster, Re-Animator, Ghoulies, Crawlspace, From Beyond, Rawhead Rex, Dolls, The Princess Academy, Robot Jox and Assault of the Killer Bimbos. Although Eliminators<\/strong> is one of their lesser titles, it\u2019s still pretty much on the same level as the other movies churned out by founder Charles Band. By that, I mean it\u2019s cheap, chintzy, poorly acted, badly written and aimed at morons. It\u2019s a terrible movie on all counts, but you can laugh at it which makes it easier to take in the long run.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For reasons made clear later on, the action begins with Mandroid (Reynolds) handing an ancient Roman centurion shield to his master, evil scientist Abbott Reeves (Dotrice, Amadeus), who immediately orders his assistant Takada (Horino, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III) to destroy the cyborg. Takada helps Mandroid to escape and gets killed in the process, but not before instructing him to seek out Colonel Hunter (Crosby, Pet Sematary), an uncommonly hot scientist.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Somehow, Mandroid manages to travel from Reeves\u2019 hideout in Mexico to the US unnoticed. It must be the awesome disguise (trenchcoat and fedora). Almost immediately, she recognizes her designs for a Mars probe in Mandroid. She then makes it clear she\u2019ll be accompanying him back to Mexico to help take down Reeves. Upon arrival, she goes to a seedy bar in search of a guide that will take them down the river to the hideout. Her interview process has to be seen to be believed. She announces that she\u2019s looking for the toughest guy in the joint which, naturally, results in a huge free-for-all brawl. The victor is Harry Fontana (Prine, Amityville II: The Possession), riverboat captain and man of questionable character. During the course of the journey, they meet Kuji (Lee, Gymkata), the ninja son of Takada. He helps them defeat a tribe of horny cavemen before joining them in their fight against Reeves.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t mention Col. Hunter brings along a small flying robot named S.P.O.T. that she designed herself. It proves useful in pinpointing the exact location of the villain\u2019s secret hideout. Mandroid has a mobile unit that enables him to travel through the South American jungle like a small tank. He also has various weaponized attachments. He\u2019s a total mean machine!<\/p>\n

\u00a0The heroes\u2019 trip isn\u2019t exact smooth-sailing as they encounter Reeves\u2019 shotgun-toting henchmen (the leader played by Peter Schrum of Demonic Toys) and rival riverboat captain Bayou Betty (Mannix, Lunch Wagon). Yes, she\u2019s built like a tank and wears a plaid flannel shirt. You can infer what you want from that, but if you\u2019re thinking stone-cold lesbian, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Eliminators<\/strong> just gets more ridiculous as it goes along. The climax features a big fight with lasers, bullets and explosions. That\u2019s fine. It\u2019s how our heroes finally deal with Reeves that\u2019s stupid. To spoil or not to spoil, that is the question. Whether \u2018tis nobler in the mind to suffer the bullets and lasers of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a team of hack screenwriters \u2026.. oh, never mind. Getting back to my original point, I\u2019ll put it this way. The heroes fix a computer the same way my father used to fix our old TV, with a hard smack.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Peter Manoogian (Enemy Territory), Eliminators<\/strong> is best served between two pieces of rye bread with ham and mustard it\u2019s so freaking cheesy. The effects are of the dime-store variety. The acting and dialogue are horrendous. It\u2019s a bad movie. At the same time, it\u2019s kind of fun like a live-action version of an awful comic book for which there won\u2019t be a second issue. If you\u2019re a connoisseur of really bad cinema, you need to put this one at the top of your must-see list.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eliminators (1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Empire\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, mild sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Manoogian\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bob Summers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mac Ahlberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 31, 1986 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Andrew Prine, Denise Crosby, Patrick Reynolds, Conan Lee, Roy Dotrice, Peter Schrum, Peggy Mannix, Fausto Bara, Tad Horino, Luis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Eliminators-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4848,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853\/revisions\/4848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}