Starring: Warwick Davis, John Gatins, Lee Armstrong, John DeMita, Caroline Williams, Michael Callan.
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith.
I have no idea how Leprechaun became an actual franchise that sustained as many films as it did (I'm stopping before I get to anything involving him hanging out with rappers, because even I have my limits), but somehow it became an actual thing that spanned six films and a (loose) remake. I kind of get having a part two but...six movies? Anyway, let's just keep going. Think this one takes place in Las Vegas which...well, okay, that makes sense.
The fact that I'm sitting here watching Leprechaun 3 just fully settled on me and for one terrifying moment I questioned my entire worth as a human being. I broke into a cold sweat, staring around the room, wondering if my entire life has been a waste, whether or not THIS was IT. What if I die tonight, and the last thing I did was watch this series? Have I accomplished anything of note in my 34 years of life?!
Then I realized that I've probably seen a lot worse. I have sat through Demonic Toys 2 and Ten after all.
The movie opens with some derelict guy dragging a statue of the Leprechaun with a medallion over its neck to a pawn shop. The guy gives him twenty bucks, complains about the medallion being fake(as he puts it on?) and the statue comes alive and attacks the pawn shop guy. No pogo stick, though...instead he bites the guys toe off...
Oh, young lady, you don't want to be hitchhiking in Las Vegas. You might end up attracting our creepy nerd of a lead character. Anyway, he offers to explain to her what's wrong with her car: she breezes out and he says "You don't want to know this, do you?" She says no. I riff: "Learning how to help myself is dumb." He agrees to give her a ride...the Leprechaun realizes he dropped a coin in the pawn shop. Why does he keep carrying his gold around anyway?
Our blonde female star is apparently a magician...well, she's an assistant but wants to have her own act.Then we keep cutting back to our "foreign" stereotype pawn shop who looks at a cheap internet site to learn about Leprechauns, finds the coin and grabs a gun planning to kill the little bastard. But, um, dude: the Leprechaun literally ate your toe. Why would even assume a gun would work? It's a magical creature. I'm not sure why the pacing is so weird: it seems like the pawn shop story should have been your opener(and several minutes shorter) and then have the two leads do their little "meet-cute" nonsense, then tie the two together. Instead we bounce back and forth. It's irritating, but not as irritating as Scott, our lead: this nerd is supposed to be small town naive but, seriously: how can someone be so completely blown away by seeing gambling? It's a casino, not the grand canyon.
Unsurprisingly, the magician Tammy works for is a total tool, and the...Jesus Christ Scott's parents gave him a check for $23,000? That's bonkers. Anyway, what I was I going to say? Oh, right, something about insulting gender roles and a lot of obvious "wishes" our cast of characters are going to make...and Scott has just thrown down all that cash on a single game of roulette? That's so painful I almost want to shut the movie off. But, we're back to the Leprechaun/Pawn shop owner story for some reason. Why hasn't this ended? We're back to the kid losing all twenty-three grand which is utterly terrifying and almost entirely impossible. Nobody is actually that dumb.
For the love of all that is holy why is this pawn shop story STILL HAPPENING?! Scott should have ended up with that gold coin like twenty minutes ago. Can we get on with this? Okay, finally, Scott has entered the pawn shop to sell his watch so he can STILL GAMBLE, and then he uses the gold coin to make a wish to be back at the casino on a winning streak...apparently the coin grants the wishes without the actual power of the Leprechaun? The video did suggest that, in this film, the Leprechaun's power comes from the gold and without it he's useless...oh, well. Doesn't really matter, since we just have the Leprechaun making puns about the names of casinos, which just kind of irritates me.
Scott might be among the most irritatingly stupid characters I've seen in a film. This movie is making me really, really mad. The Leprechaun having a sight gag with an Elvis impersonator did not improve my mood. At all.
This is supposed to be funny but it's just putting me on edge. Everyone is trying to steal Scotts money and it's a farcical attempt to riff on "Midsummer Nights Dream" or whatever, with everyone looking for the coin and getting wishes and sexist and stupid stuff. And now Scott is going to become a Leprechaun and...oh, why am I bothering?
A man was just electrocuted to death by a boob robot, and the Leprechaun beat up two loan sharks with a shaleleigh. Then he causes a Woman's butt, boobs and lips expand to horrific sizes and...she explodes. It wasn't really horrfying in the horror movie sense, but in the "geez, that's ugly and sexist and insulting."
Final Thoughts: I had designs on doing the fourth film in the series but I just don't think I can bring myself to go ahead with it. This third film was so awful that I think it actually threw my back out somehow.
Final Rating: One Star.
No comments:
Post a Comment