Maximum Overdrive Review

Several motion pictures based upon the works of American novelist Stephen King have been produced. Films such as The Green Mile, Stand By Me, and The Shawshank Redemption not only entertained us, but captivated us, teaching us a little about life and alot about ourselves. Maximum Overdrive does none of these things. What it does do, however, is give us some cool and gory death scenes, cheesy '80s dialogue from the likes of Emilio Estevez and Pat Hingle, not to mention an electrifying soundtrack by "The Thunder From Down Under", AC/DC. Need I say more? Didn't think so. But I will, because if I didn't, this review would be a paragraph fucking long. The scoring system is the same as the game scoring system. I will be reviewing this movie on a scale from 1-10. 1 being Showgirls, 10 being Jurassic Park. May the reviewing commence!

STORY: Definitely not the highpoint of the movie. The synopsis is that an off-course meteor dubbed "Rhea-M" (obviously named after "Cheers" veteran actress Rhea Perlman.) is orbiting the Earth and shrouding the planet in a weird, green aura. This causes all of the machines on our majestic planet to become self-aware killing tools. Cut to the town of Wilmington, North Carolina, where a drawbridge carrying the morning commute (including a watermelon truck and the AC/DC tour bus.) decides to activate itself, causing a major pileup. Now let's move to the Dixie Boy truck stop, where a gas station attendant is filling up a semitruck. Noticing that the gas nozzle isn't working, he ingeniously points it at his face, getting sprayed in the eyes with gasoline, and goes nearly blind. Simultaneously, an anonymous black man is in the truck stop's arcade room, stereotypically stealing shit out of the vending machines. After stuffing his pockets with cookies, smokes, and quarters, he notices that one of the pinball machines is going haywire. Obviously offended by this, the man exclaims "Yo mama!" as an insult for no reason at all. The pinball machine proceeds by electrocuting the zany black guy. Yes, the black guy dies first. The Dixie Boy staff then discover the man's body, and not long after, they quickly realize that several semitrucks are driving around the truck stop allowing no one to leave, and no one to come to the rescue. Not exactly the kind of quality writing you'd find in a film like "Raging Bull", but, hey, what were you expecting?

ACTING: Incredibly cheesy. Let me give you a prime example. In the opening of the film, Stephen King shows up for his obligatory cameo appearance. He plays a man who walks up to an ATM machine. When he swipes his debit card, the screen displays the words "YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE". King's character then exclaims to his offscreen wife, "Sugarbuns! This machine just called me an asshole!". Wow, and that's just a sample of some of the powerhouse performances in this film. Enter Emilio Estevez as Billy, the truck stop's part-time cook and full-time hero. Actually, he's probably one of the better actors in the movie. His character isn't especially well-written and no different than any other generic action movie hero, but Estevez pulls it off in a way that is mildly believable. His performance isn't Oscar-worthy, but compared to the rest of the cast (*cough* Yeardley Smith *cough*) he looks like Marlon Brando. Of course, you can't have an action film without the love interest. Meet Laura Harrington as the completely unconvincing Brett. She's introduced about 20 minutes into the movie and has sexual intercourse with Emilio Estevez's character about 25 minutes into the movie. Nice. But don't forget Yeardley Smith (The Simpson's Lisa) as newlywed Connie, who gets stuck at the Dixie Boy with her newfound spouse Curt, played terribly by John Short. Connie is maybe the most annoying character in a movie of all time. Remember Dakota Fanning in Spielberg's War of the Worlds? Yeah, Connie's worse. Like, ridiculously so. She's the movie equivalent of Slippy from Star Fox. She consistently screams and cries, pissing off the entire audience in the process. Curt's not much better. After crawling through a sewer system, he exclaims "Gee! That was fun! Let's do that again!". Let's not, you over-optimistic prick. And then there's Hendershot. the a-hole truck stop owner who treats everyone like shit. Not only is he a douchebag, but he's also a weapons dealer, which he shows everyone when he blasts away an alien-controlled semitruck with a rocket launcher. Did I mention he's played by Pat Hingle? The same Pat Hingle who played Commissioner Gordon in Tim Burton's Batman. Saddly, Pat passed away early last year. Fortunately, he left a great legacy of films behind. Wait, he was in Muppets From Space?... Fuck him.

EFFECTS: For the most part, pretty decent. A few good explosions, a couple people get gory deaths thanks to the semitrucks, and in the best part of the movie, a young boy gets murdered by a runaway steamroller. Sweet.

MUSIC: Awesome. I may be biased (due to the fact that AC/DC is my favorite band of all time.), but AC/DC rocks the hell out of this movie. Fun fact: The soundtrack to this film is actually one of AC/DC's best-selling albums, Who Made Who. Songs such as "Hells Bells", "You Shook Me All Night Long", "Ride On", and, of course, "Who Made Who" make appearances and so do some original material from the band as well. A great soundtrack to an otherwise okay movie.

OVERALL: Not bad. I was expecting a better film, due to it being written and directed by Stephen King, but I think this movie was more of an homage to horror films of the 1950s. The acting was pretty bad, the story was unforgivable, but I think that if you leave your brain at the door, you'll get a kick out of it. The movie has some good gore effects, but it's definitely no Cannibal Holocaust, plus, the soundtrack is great. So, if your tired of Scorsese and Spielberg, have some fun at the movies with Stephen King. I think you'll be glad you did. Maximum Overdrive gets a 7 out of 10.

Sincerely,

Mr. Retro

P.S.,
Want to know what the next review is? Here's a hint: In the next review, Urkel comes full circle.