Starring: Warwick Davis, Jennifer Aniston, Ken Olandt, Mark Holton, Robert Gorman.
Director: Mark Jones.
It's St.Patrick's Day, so...well, this should be a no-brainer, right? I'm old enough to remember thinking "the girl from Leprechaun is super gorgeous" before knowing who Jennifer Aniston was, so there's that. Before her famous hair and massively successful television show, she was the star of a crappy horror flick about a hammy Warwick Davis...which goes to show you that anyone can blow up under the right circumstances. These days Aniston is so big she wouldn't even notice stepping on everyone involved in this film long enough to scrape them off her shoe. But everyone starts somewhere.
We open with an aging Irishman fulfilling various stereotypes as a half drunk man who apparently stole the pot of gold from a Leprechaun, and his Wife mocks his story. She then falls down the stairs fleeing from Warwick Davis, which seems even more unbelievable than the actual existence of Leprechauns. The Leprechaun fears four leaf clovers and...well, bullets make him sleepy or something? The old Irishman shoots him a couple of times and apparently incapacitates him and tosses him into a crate, but as soon as he's in the crate he wakes up and mocks the guy for a bit...then the guy has a stroke and dies before he can set the crate on fire. The Leprechaun finds this amusing, even though he's stuck in a crate for basically forever.
Ten years later and here comes Jennifer Aniston with her Father...apparently this is North Dakota. Aniston is a high society girl who wishes she was in L.A. She's super likable, obviously...well, no, she isn't. Sarcasm doesn't translate to the written word well. She runs into hunky Nathan(I fully approve of the name), who basically tricks her into agreeing to stick around by challenging her sense of female equality...it'd be a weird scene if it weren't deliberately meant the way it is. Nathan obviously ISN'T sexist, and she sticks up for her gender pretty quickly.
Nineties fashion was pretty fantastic: Aniston rocks jean shorts with floral patches and L.A. Looks Sneakers. It's really great. She warms up pretty quickly once she starts hanging with Nathan, and her natural charisma starts to shine through. Meanwhile, mentally disabled Ozzy ends up running into the Leprechaun and, because mentally disabled, nobody believes him. Despite the Leprechaun really wanting his stuff back, he decides to be subtle for awhile...makes a lot of sense. Ozzy sees a rainbow and runs off to look for the end and annoying little brat Alex follows after him. Ozzy swallows a gold coin and Alex is hoping to hide the gold to pay for an operation to make Ozzy smarter. Meanwhile the Leprechaun grabs Jennifer's leg. She thinks it's Nathan and kind of likes it, then the Leprechaun scratches her. The only thing good to come of it is this exchange:
"Something was touching me. I thought it was Nathan feeling my leg."
Nathan, with a grin: "You'd let me?"
Anyway, Leprechaun injures Aniston's Dad, so they go into town to take him to a hospital. Alex leaves a coin with a pawn broker. The Leprechaun shows up after Alex and Ozzy have left, popping out of a safe. The Pawn Broker gives the coin back, and then something truly magical happens. The Leprechaun shows up with a pogo stick. The Broker screams "NOOOOO! NOOO!" and then the Leprechaun jumps up and down saying "This old man, he played one, he played pogo on his lung" until the guy is dead. I think Mark Jones should have been involved in the space program or some sort of humanitarian effort because any man who could write a scene about a dwarf killing a man with a pogo stick could probably solve all the worlds problems.
I don't know if it's me or the movie, but I don't seem to be making any momentum with this post. It's probably both the movie AND me but...well, it's not like there's a lot to analyze or discuss with this film. I mean, what is there to really say about it? Warwick Davis has a lot of energy and borders on entertaining? Jennifer Aniston is really lovely and has a lot of charisma(which is obvious because it's why she became a mega star)? I mean, both of those things are true but are also self evident. Actually, I might add that Ken Olandt as Nathan isn't so bad, either...there's occasionally some interesting uses of handheld camera work. The trouble is that the film isn't really scary or funny, and it desperately wants to be both of those things. Not sure the addition of an annoying would-be Feldman and/or a mentally disabled guy as central cast members was a particularly wise choice, either.
On the plus side, though: The Leprechaun just made a weaponized vehicle out of a lawnmower and a pitchfork. And then used it to knock over a pickup truck. So, well, there IS that.
Y'know, it's interesting that the Leprechaun basically has seemingly unlimited power but still spends time to chase people down and bite them. He literally has shown the ability to teleport and use telekinesis at least, it seems like physical encounters would be entirely unnecessary. I mean, there's the throw away lines of his powers not being at their peak without his actual gold, but that doesn't seem to be holding him back much. It's like if Freddy decided to instead kick people in the balls while they were awake, or Pinhead getting into boxing matches.
Okay, so old man O'grady from the beginning is still alive. I think he miraculously recovered when the screenwriter realized the film needed some stretching...well, okay, also O'Grady knows how to kill a Leprechaun. Ozzy probably could have just as easily related that information, though.
Unlimited power but the Leprechaun can't seem to handle wearing roller skates, or prevent himself from crashing into a fence. Then Aniston enters the old folks home or whatever and sneaks past the sleeping guard(who has a badge?) instead of say getting his help like she was trying to do ten minutes ago. She...oh, boy, this all just came together and it's so badly written it makes me want to punch myself. Tori drove her jeep to town to get info on how to kill a Leprechaun but didn't, say, go to the police and send an ambulance for Nathan and the others? Why didn't she use that jeep forty minutes ago?
Hey, one genuine laugh! Ozzy makes the heroic gesture to save Alex (and gets cut the fuck up as a result: seriously, respect), and the Leprechaun chases after him. As he runs past Nathan, he utters "How's your leg?" and smacks the guys knee. It's actually kind of funny. Also funny: The Leprechaun crawls out of the well half melted and reiterates that he wants his gold: so Nathan runs over and hits the shell of a Leprechaun in the face with the butt of the rifle and then blows the well up with gasoline.
Final Thoughts: I don't think there's much else to add. It's pretty terrible, other than some of the nicer things I said throughout this blog.
Final Rating: Two Stars.
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