“My grandmother can shoot better than that… and she’s dead!”

Justin’s rating: Meg Foster is my guardian angel

Justin’s review: What would you get if you used leftover ideas from Die Hard, Terminator, and Demolition Man and reused sets from Alien³ and the leftover budget from a corporate luncheon at Subway? Nobody’s asking, but we’re going to find out anyway in Project Shadowchaser.

Honestly, I think the future would be about 800% safer if the government and other shadowy agencies would stop making murder androids and losing control of them. It’s not that such an event is rare but regrettable — its so inevitable that insurance companies refuse to unwrite these outfits any longer.

In the time it took you to read the first two paragraphs there, a platinum blonde Swede of an android (Frank Zagarino) already broke out of its facilities and terminated his way to taking over a hospital high-rise with the help of a group of terrorists. Where and when he had time to gather together minions, we have no idea, because this film recklessly barrels into the conflict without proper explanations.

The gov’ment decides that the best course of action for this crisis is to unfreeze a prisoner who just so happens to be the architect of the building — except he’s not. And before your mouth has the time to frame the sentence, “Why would the cops think that an ex-con architect is the best man to put at the head of this counter-terrorism operation?” you’re suddenly jolting forward with a, “Holy mother of unicorns, that’s Martin Kove!”

That’s right, the memorable evil Cobra Kai leader from The Karate Kid actually steps up to be the hero here. And while this Desilva is not the architect (he’s actually a football player pulled out of stasis by mistake), he’s darn well going to pretend he is in the hopes of avoiding a return to his chilly prison.

The terrorists’ main target is the president’s daughter-slash-nurse, played by cult mainstay Meg Foster, whom they hope to hold ransom for $50 million. I mean, I guess that sounded like a lot in 1992?

All Desilva has to do is infiltrate the hospital, rescue the hostages, thwart the bad guys, and win his pardon (while hoping nobody actually checks his driver’s license) — all while looking like an ascended extra from Miami Vice.

What leaped out at me is how this movie is so eager and impatient to get to the terrorist-Die Hard scenario that it completely leap-frogs over setting up character traits and motivation. I had no idea who this android dude was or how he got a terrorist team. Fake Desilva is already two layers deep into pretending, so he’s got nothing to work with other than latent resentment that Johnny didn’t win the Tri-County Tournament and a weak repeated plea that “I’m just an architect!” And Meg Foster is captured and threatened well before we even find out who she’s supposed to be.

It feels like a movie set on fast-forward, and I was begging it to slow down and tell us something, anything to make us care about these people. Granted, I learned that Meg Foster set her fashion priorities to change out of a practical nurse’s outfit and into a slinky cocktail dress (WITH high heels) as firefights are happening all around her.

The whole android angle makes this familiar setup somewhat befuddling. Other than being really strong and looking like a front man for a 1987 Europop band, his being a robot doesn’t add any real depth to his Hans Gruber understudy. He doesn’t suddenly, say, pop metal wings out of his back or start assimilating all of the IBM Pentiums in the office like the Borg. He just speaks into a walkie-talkie for the most part. But he does it super-duper-seriously.

Project Shadowchaser is quite comfortable chasing B-tier entertainment without any aspirations of being better than that. Everyone acts just a little less than good, the editing is a little less than ideal, and the action acceptable but not stellar. This kind of experience goes down easy to the overly bored, even if it’s not something you’re going to remember in a week or so.

I’ve certainly seen far worse (and far more boring!) Die Hard clones, and the novelty of seeing Kove try to redeem himself as an action hero merits a watch. But did it merit three sequels (1994-96)? Probably not, other than the fact that you can easily bring androids back from the dead.

Intermission!

• Head through the monitor is going to leave you with a migraine
• Well, this movie is sponsored by Pepsi
• So many cuts between two scenes, I’m getting dizzy
• “You have two minutes to clear the area.” [hits a guy] “You have less than two minutes.”
• These bad guys really love shooting up ceilings
• “Anybody got a beer?”
• Why use stairs if you can repel down elevator shafts?
• The whole SWAT team gets taken out by an elevator
• Hostage thrown to his death through the window
• Meg Foster shooting up the bathroom and severely annoying a terrorist in the process
• Shock therapy to the FACE
• This is a movie where everyone — everyone — gleefully fires into ceilings at any suspicion or motivation
• “Who are you?” “Just the wrong guy in the wrong place.”
• Oh hey, it’s the bad guy from Lethal Weapon 2 who got his diplomatic immunity revoked
• Time for a pointless costume change into an evening cocktail dress
• “In here you’re just excess baggage.”
• I like when she bites his finger
• Desilva’s frustrated face when she throws a grenade without pulling the pin made me laugh
• These vents are so big you can walk upright in?
• Meg Foster’s legs are seriously jacked
• “No no no this is not naptime.”
• When she’s talking about his football game, the soundtrack starts playing the game in the background, which is all kinds of weird
• EXPLODING HOSPITAL GURNEY
• Dang, Desilva really gets shot. And he’s not showing any ill effects one scene later.
• “A sort of android embolism”
• The Secret Service apparently have no problem allowing a defenseless President from strolling into a terrorist/hostage situation
• The slow-mo dude on fire jumping out of a window and falling endlessly to his death
• “TOUCHDOWN!”