We begin with an annual tradition. If you're a longtime reader you know what I'm talking about. There are bad movies that I willingly go see. There are bad movies that I refuse to go see. Some movies I won't bother with because I know they just aren't my cup of tea. Then there are the films that all I need to see is a trailer to know I cannot even entertain the thought of sitting through it. No way. No how. Never. Never ever. Painfully bad looking comedies, chick flicks the very sight of cause me testicular pain, teeny bopper musicals, artsy fartsy pretension that guarantees no amount of critical acclaim will get me to watch. Which film offended my sensibilities more than any other this past year? We're about to find out...

THE TOP 10 MOVIES I DID NOT PAY TO SEE IN 2008 AND, DAMMIT, I PLAN TO KEEP IT THAT WAY

10) NIGHTS IN RODANTHE
9) FOOL'S GOLD/MY BEST FRIEND'S GIRL (Kate Hudson Double Feature from Hell)
8) CHE
7) SEX AND THE CITY: THE MOVIE
6) WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS
5) HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3/MAMMA MIA! (Tied for musical horror of the year)
4) COLLEGE ROAD TRIP
3) WITLESS PROTECTION
2) MEET THE SPARTANS
1) THE LOVE GURU

If you read the AUGUST FLUSH Foyeurism then you know I hinted that MEET THE SPARTANS was tops on this list. But when I actually sat down to put the list together it dawned on me that I endured DISASTER MOVIE so surely I could endure MEET THE SPARTANS - not that I'd ever want to. On the other hand, every trailer, every TV spot, even just staring at the poster for THE LOVE GURU made me cringe. Mike Myers in that beard looking like a rejected Saturday Night Live sketch character left me longing for another IT'S PAT movie. I can't even fully put into words how off-putting it all looked to me. Myers has claimed in the past that he channels the spirit of Peter Sellers. Someone might want to remind him that Peter Sellers made his fair share of atrociously unfunny comedies. Peter Sellers at his worst could have made THE LOVE GURU. Unfortunately for all of us, Mike Myers at his unfunniest did.

Now moving on to this month's Foyeurism... I hope you're ready for adventure, romance, restless natives, and bearded manly men saving the day. We're going to arid desert of the Australian outback and the deepest, darkest jungles of Africa. We're going to rustle cattle and wrestle crocodiles. Something new and something obscure.

First, though, some fan mail. Fan mail from a reader who also found himself in a situation vaguely similar to the scenarios of this month's Foyeurism. No wild animals or noble savages, not sure if he has a beard or not, but romance and adventure in the wild with my words of wisdom guiding him towards a greater glory (or potentially certain doom). I knew when I wrote that NEVER BACK DOWN Foyeurism it was the greatest thing I'd ever done but I had no idea it could lead to this...

Foy--

First, the general, introductory compliment. My girlfriend Erin and I love your web site. We stumbled onto it a couple of years ago when we were in a pub trying to drunkenly recall the name of a abysmal Sci Fi original we had seen, and Google pointed us in your direction. In a mostly empty pub on a Sunday night, we spent over an hour reading your reviews and piercing insights into the merits of the Asylum and Tibor Tibacks (sp?), guffawing like drunk lunatics. The pub was largely deserted but we still received several curious looks from the few other patrons. Screw 'em. We now read your site every week (or therabouts) and still enjoy it immensely. Through your site, we've learned of so many abysmal films (Curse of Halloween, which still haunts us) and righteously amazing films, like Action USA and Freeway Maniac. Almost none of our friends really appreciate schlock like us, so it was great to find such a great resource in the form of your site. Thank you, sir.

Now, the real reason I write. Two weeks ago, we went on a week long vacation up to Maine, starting in Bar Harbor, staying at a B&B (where we caught up on weeks of your entries we haven't been able to read recently--surely, we're the only couple to have made use of the Wifi in that B&B to read about Riddle of the Sphinx...). Any way, we then spent four days at a secluded, Evil Dead-like (if much nicer) cabin in northern Maine, on moosehead lake, which is surrounded by numerous mountains. On the basis of my totally ignorant suggestion, we stupidly decided to "hike" up one such mountain, Big Moose Mountain, that was described in the travel brochure as being a "challenging" hike. Well, that's an understatement. We're under 30, in good shape, work out regularly when not slaving away at work, but we’re NYC people, not regular hikers, and we were encountering very steep inclines that were getting increasingly snow covered. About 2/3 of the way up this 3200 foot nightmare, I couldn't go on. I was beat. My hair was actually frozen. I was ready to cry, build a snow fort, and use my blackberry to e-mail hire an ox to drag me down the mountain. I stopped, and muttered "fuck this fucking mountain."

Erin yelled at me "No!"

Before I had a chance to respond, she continued with "never back down!"

I looked up.

"What the fuck...?"

She repeated "never back down....because only by not backing down, will you able to back down!"

I nodded, slowly understanding her point. "You're right, by not backing down now, I'll be able to back down in the future when some other idiot suggests hiking up a mountain, but I can say I didn’t back down before, and therefore I can back down now!!"

And we didn't back down. We climbed that appalling and snowy mountain. There was no reward in climbing it--but we didn't back down. And for that, we can thank your amazing review of Never Back Down. In its own very singular way, it almost inspired us. We were ready to go all MMA on that horrible mountain if necessary, in order to be able to backdown in the future from all other mountain “hikes”.

Regards,

Josh (& Erin)

There you go, everyone. Foyeurisms: entertaining, informative, and inspirational.

AUSTRALIA UNSEEN
(And I swear that wasn't intended as a crack about AUSTRALIA's dismal box office)

The motion picture based on the country adapted from the continent

My biggest gripe with AUSTRALIA stemmed from wondering where the hell that “Down Under” song by Men at Work was. The laws of cinema dictate that if a movie made after 1983 takes place in Australia the song "Down Under" must play at some point, whether it be the actual song, a bad cover version, or merely an instrumental. That this particular film is set in World War 2 era Australia does not matter. It's set in Australia, the title of the film is AUSTRALIA, and that means I should be hearing the melodic sounds of "I come from a land down under. Where beer does flow and men chunder." Then again, maybe it wouldn't be entirely appropriate. People only seemed to drink rum in this Australia, not beer, and, to be honest, I don't know what in the blue blazes "chunder" means.

Not enough kangaroos either. That's got to be my biggest complaint: not enough kangaroos. This movie is set in the Australian Outback yet there's only one scene involving kangaroos? I boo the lack of roo.

This is Australia, Baz Luhrmann style, although given Luhrmann's usual style, the visuals are remarkably subdued. I think Luhrmann finally remembered to take his Ritalin. The man who gave us such critically acclaimed assaults on the senses as MOULIN ROUGE and WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO & JULIET now gives us a motion picture experience so bloody Australian I kept waiting for Jacko to show up with Energizer batteries in each hand and yell "Oy!"

Luhrmann intended AUSTRALIA to be a sweeping epic like the large scale romance and adventure dramas from Hollywood's golden age; think GONE DOWN UNDER WITH THE WIND. Because the Motion Picture Academy also loves social conscience films, Luhrmann tosses in a little white liberal guilt by having these white characters standing up for the aboriginal (i.e. black) people of the Australian Outback in a time when doing so would make one a social pariah. Starting out as an Australian Western before morphing into an Australian World War 2 movie, AUSTRALIA is a fairly enjoyable if overlong, most definitely overcooked, cabob of shrimp-on-the-barbie cornpone. Luhrmann may have shot for Oscar-baiting grandiose but will just have to settle for a $100 million feature length Harlequin romance novel by way of Ed Zwick.

The movie sells itself as being a love story between Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. That romance almost plays second fiddle to the film's true love story between Nicole Kidman and a half-caste aboriginal boy named Nallah. Jackman also loves the boy, just not to the degree Kidman does. Don't panic. I don't mean any of this in a sexual manner. It's just that Baz Luhrmann wanted to make a statement about the deplorable racist treatment the aboriginal people of Australia suffered at the hands of "G'Day, matey" white folks, in particular focusing on an obscene law that allowed authorities to effectively quarantine any mixed race children of whites and aboriginal women and send them to a small island off the coast to keep them from growing up to continue polluting the Aryan Australian gene pool. What better way to do that than with an adorable rugrat? That kid even gets to narrate the movie, sounding like a Fairy bread loving Dickens character.

Ah, yeah, kid... Angelina Jolie is going to love you.

If there's one thing I've come to learn from watching Hollywood movies post-DANCE WITH WOLVES it's that there are no primitive cultures; there are no savage races. What we mistake for primitive man is actually folksy tribesmen better in tune with the natural and spiritual world than we as civilized Anglo-Saxons could ever possibly appreciate. Nallah is also very much into the mysticism of his forefathers and every so often he'll brag about his perceived powers of invisibility while posing like Taimak in THE LAST DRAGON. To my profound disappointment, the climax did not have Nallah magically developing the power of "The Glow" that he would then use to defeat the Shogun of Sydney.

But, yeah, this movie is really about Kidman's barren Brit aristocrat and her love for young Nallah more than it is about her love for a certain cattle driver recently named Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine, especially after the boy's mother is quite conveniently killed off early in allowing her to slip into the role of mother figure. There's even a drinking game to be made out of it. Anytime Kidman says (or more likely yells) the name "Nallah", take a shot. Make sure you're drinking rum; that seemed to be all anyone drank in AUSTRALIA. It's a long movie but you'll be stewing in your own juices soon enough.

Nicole Kidman... Here she continues along in her amazing process to transform herself into the world's first living China doll. I remember when I thought Nicole Kidman was absolutely gorgeous. Now that she's hit the Botox harder than Ivan Drago hit a heavy bag she's got the same skin complexion as the Wayans brothers under their WHITE CHICKS make-up. Stone faced, nearly frozen in place above the lips, I kept waiting for her face to get cracked, shatter into ash, and reveal a hideous Abominable Dr. Phibes face beneath. I wonder if and when Katie Holmes finally escapes from Tom Cruise's Scientological tentacles if her facial features will also begin to take upon a porcelain veneer.

She didn't look this much like a Stepford wife even when she starred in the THE STEPFORD WIVES

Kidman channels Katherine Hepburn as heroine Lady Ashley. Since Kidman herself is a real-life Aussie native, here she gets to play a delicate English rose. She gets transplanted to rough and tumble Down Under in pursuit of her husband who has been living in the Outback running a cattle ranch called Faraway Downs. Something about the name Faraway Downs caused me to keep envisioning a horse-racing track at Disney World. I felt the urge to wanna bet fifty Disney Dollars on a horse in the fourth race at Faraway Downs. Either that or a trailer park for Hobbits.

Lady Ashley (or "Missus Boss" as she'll soon be known by the natives) arrives at Faraway Downs just in time to learn her husband has been murdered. She mourns for approximately 45-seconds. What woman needs to weep for their deceased beloved when she has The Drover waiting in the wings?

Hugh Jackman is "The Drover". He is simply known as "The Drover". Sometimes the "The" gets dropped and he just becomes "Drover". Even when he and Lady Ashley fall in love, even when they're shacked up together talking about spending the rest of their lives together, never does she look at him and ask, "So, uh, Drover, what's your real name?" Unless I missed that scene during the short bathroom break I had to take; somehow I doubt it. Why is he called The Drover? Because he's a cattle driver, naturally. He drove a lot of cattle in his day so now he's just known as The Drover. I guess it's sort of like Jason Statham from IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE simply calling himself Farmer because he's a farmer. Jackman's a cattle driver so just call him The Drover. Not "The Driver", mind you. This is Australia. It's in the Southern Hemisphere. Water drains counter-clockwise and typhoons spin in the opposite direction. Everything down there is ass backwards for some reason thus they insist on the past tense of his name. The Drover, ladies and gentlemen.

What we do learn about The Drover is that he used to be married to an aboriginal woman who passed away many years earlier. A societal outcast, he still continues to defend the aboriginal tribes of the Outback from wicked two-named white folk that set foot in this sacred land acting all high and mighty, what with their high falutin' education, modern civilization, and excessive whiteness. Whenever anyone makes a disparaging comment about these proud natives, The Drover launches into a fist-flying rage. Hugh Jackman? More like Hugh SMACK-MAN! He'll smack you alright. He'll smack you stonkered. Like Kevin Costner's DANCE WITH WOLVES infused with Russell Crowe's two-fisted temperament. Do not disparage these proud natives or else you will feel the wrath of The Drover and this Aussie is Vegi-Mighty indeed!

In reality, even Australians will tell you this is a little far-fetched. Like having a white Southerner during American slavery times wandering about Dixie getting into brawls with anyone that dare make a racial comment against the blacks. He wouldn't have lasted very long.

It's DROVERIN' time!

Lady Ashley’s known The Drover for less than five movie minutes before she's watching him shirtless, showering his manly torso with a bucket of soapy water, the suds dripping down his rippling muscles in near slow-motion, as if this movie had abruptly turned into another TWO MOON JUNCTION sequel. And I bet you thought I was being sarcastic when I made comparisons to a Harlequin romance novel. Drover is the ultimate coupling of Fabio and Crocodile Dundee. Better believe it won't be too longer before he's giving this prim British lady a jolly good drovering.

I was sitting a few seats down from a group of old ladies; I’m talking of the walkers and wheelchairs set. Anytime Hugh Jackman took his shirt off, good heavens, these geezers began squealing like teenage girls at a screening of TWILIGHT. You'd have thought Andy Griffith had just shown up in a loin cloth. Thank goodness Jackman didn't show off his donger or else the Golden Girls might have gone into cardiac arrest.

The villain of the film is Fletcher, but not The Fletcher; I wouldn't even begin to speculate what a Fletcher would be job-wise. A double-crossing Dunny rat, Fletcher is a cattle driver working for Faraway Downs rival, Carney Cattle, the #1 beef company in all of Australia. Brian Brown is King Carney (Just when you thought The Drover was a dumb name), owner of Carny Cattle and the Vince McMahon of the Australian beef industry. King Carney - sounds like the title given to someone running a traveling carnival - is a hard-nosed capitalist looking to control a monopoly if only he can put Faraway Downs out of business. Saboteur Fletcher takes things too far, committing murder, including Lady Ashley's husband and even orchestrating the eventual crocodile demise of King Carney himself, as he schemes to marry his way into the Carney family and become the new kingpin of Aussie cattle.

There was so much cattle, talk of cattle, and footage of cattle driving in AUSTRALIA that I exited the theater with a hankering for a big juicy steak. Two steak houses around the corner from the theater and both were closed. Damn, I was jonesing like a heroin addict. Though not like the elderly women for whom Hugh Jackman was the only 100% prime beef they were interested in.

Lady Ashley and The Drover set out to protect this half-breed boy from getting shipped away and drive their cattle to the city of Darwin where they'll be loaded aboard a ship destined for the mess halls of the Australian military off fighting in WW2. Doing so will save Faraway Downs from bankruptcy. They'll fall in love during the journey too. After all, there is no more romantic setting than being stuck out in the blazing heat of the Australian Outback for weeks at a time deprived of bath water and surrounded by a few hundred heads of cattle.

AUSTRALIA has a natural ending about two hours in: almost all of the storylines were resolved, it crescendos dramatically and even narrator Nallah sounded like he was wrapping everything up in a great big red bow of Aussie joy. Yet Luhrmann couldn't leave well enough alone. Nope. Instead he went ahead and began working on the sequel right then and there. For an additional 45+ minutes we're treated to AUSTRALIA EPISODE 2: ATTACK OF THE JAPS.

The Japanese air force bomb the hell out of the city of Darwin. The movie begins in 1939 yet the actual bombing of Darwin didn't happen until 1942. Did they spend three years wandering the desert herding that cattle to Darwin or what?

Here Baz Luhrmann's Down Under romantic Western transforms into Baz Luhrmann's Australian version of Michael Bay's PEARL HARBOR. Darwin is obliterated. The Drover thinks Lady Ashley is dead. Lady Ashley thinks The Drover left her for life in the Outback drovering. Both want to save Nallah (the true love of their lives) who got captured by authorities and was sent to that island off the coast that not only did the Japanese bomb first; they've even stormed the beaches of with rifles for no specific reason. Then there's Fletcher still lurking about the rubble plotting to steal Faraway Downs and kill the lot of them, in particular, young Nallah, who it turns out is his own secret half-breed son.

If the film's original ending had been used, Fletcher would have succeeded in killing The Drover before being felled by an old aboriginal witchdoctor's spear. Test audiences really hated that ending (not the part about the old aboriginal witchdoctor caking himself in ash, carving spears amid bombed out debris, and impaling a pencil-mustachioed creep from atop a water tower, unfortunately).

Uh, oh. Looks like George Clinton's been smokin' the mushrooms again

Luhrmann and company had to scramble to reshoot a new happy ending in time for the film's release; technically, the second happy of the ending of the film. I don't see why it would have been so awful to kill The Drover since the way this Lady Ashley operates she'd have a new hunk in her life real quick. Probably waiting for Nallah to grow up big and strong to give him a little of that Woody Allen/Soon Yi action. Yeah, I could definitely see this Lady Ashley coming down with a case of the Outback Fever.

I'd be remiss not to mention the film's annoying obsession with THE WIZARD OF OZ, a film Kidman refers to having seen a while ago even though the movie is set in 1939 and THE WIZARD OF OZ wasn't released until August of 1939. The Baz (not the real "The Baz", that's Brian "STONE COLD" Bosworth) shoehorned in everything he could. His film has an obsession with the song "Somewhere over the Rainbow". It gets sung by Kidman, hummed by aboriginal sidekicks, played on a harmonica by Nallah, and treated as something bordering on sacred, all but supernatural, since the aborigines regard music as sacred and can be used as sort of a supernatural compass. This aspect alone pushes the film so far into the realm of cheese instead of AUSTRALIA it should have been called WISCONSIN.

Alternate title: MOVIE UNSEEN

You know you're in trouble right from the get go when a movie about a group of hired guns sent into the African jungle to rescue the daughter of a rich industrialist taken captive by a mysterious tribe that worships and sacrifices people to crocodiles kicks off with a song that sounds more befitting the opening credits of an 80's comedy like MANNEQUIN. This is a violent R-rated action movie that will involve people gunned down, impaled, and eaten by crocodiles; why is the opening music so damn peppy it sounds like it could be the theme from a Jonathan Silverman movie?

From deepest, darkest 1989 comes ENEMY UNSEEN, a violent direct-to-video jungle exploiter that has gone predominantly unseen. Probably with good reason. Our director is the acclaimed Elmo De Witt. According to IMDB, his prior directing credits included a movie I know I've never heard of called YOU MUST BE JOKING. Kind of ironic since "You must be joking!" is precisely the reaction I had watching parts of ENEMY UNSEEN.

Scientists Mel and Roxanne are surveying the African jungle for reasons not specified. I think they're supposed to be married, not that it will matter since death will soon do them part. They witness African tribesman marching in celebration towards the river with the cardboard crocodile they carry in celebration, much like the dragons at a Chinese New Year festival, only with actual fire in place of firecrackers. The witchdoctor instructs a young tribeswoman in some sort of a trance to wade out into the river where she'll be greeted by a hungry crocodile. Mel and Roxanne are rightfully horrified by this primitive act of barbarism. Unfortunately for them, their horror alerts the tribe that they have an unwanted audience. Escape? Not when Butterfingers Mel forgets the keys to their airboat and Roxanne feels the need to go back for her camera. Mel gets a spear to the gut while Roxanne gets taken captive. Savages, whether they be primitive tribesman or atomic mutants, whether it be for mating or sacrifice, they always have a soft spot for the ladies.

Now these jungle savages aren't total savages. They kindly strap Mel's body to a wood carving of a crocodile and send him back down the river to be discovered by other white folk. It's only common courtesy.

The most important aspect of ENEMY UNSEEN is not that someone was killed, someone else was taken captive, and now someone else is going to have to come save that someone else. The most important aspect of ENEMY UNSEEN is that the witchdoctor wears this snazzy headpiece that uses two crocodile heads as a visor. We'll get a look at it from the back later on and see that it runs all the way down the his backside with a tail and everything. Dammit, I want that headdress! If I had that hat I'd so wear it out in public. I don't care if people stared at me like I was insane because I'd have my swanky, double whammy croc headdress. Everyone else can go to hell! I'm king of the crocs, baby!

Back in civilized society, Roxanne's concerned father, Gordon, wants to set up a rescue party to find his daughter who he is 100% convinced is still alive. How does he know she's still alive? Because a father knows these things, that's how. The rich industrialist sets out to hire an ex-commando named Steiger, played by Vernon Wells AKA the ass-less chaps wearing mohawked biker from THE ROAD WARRIOR and "Let off some steam, Bennett" from COMMANDO. Here, with his hair and beard, Wells is in full Chuck Norris mode. Steiger initially refuses the job claiming to be "retired". Two seconds later, he accepts the mission. What changed his mind? Good question. Too bad nobody bothered to ask him.

It's off to the "Crocodile Valley" in the wilds of Africa. Roxanne's dad paid $6 million for the land intending to build a small hotel and game reserve; Mel and Roxanne had been scouting the landscape when they ran into native trouble. The rescue party consists of Steiger, Gordon, Josh (an old commando buddy of Steiger's who often talks like he's in a 1970's blacksploitation flick), local linguist Malanga (whose sister vanished in these jungles years ago), and two extraneous mercs whose hot shot attitudes (one is an outright racist, always a nice touch) signal that they're gonna be croc bait sooner rather than later.

The racist one, nicknamed "Pencil" for some odd reason, will hurl the "n" word at Malanga leading to a bizarre black power moment between Josh and Malonga during which the two briefly debate the pros and cons of the "n" word followed by an international exchange of jive handshaking techniques. Robert Downey Jr.'s TROPIC THUNDER character got deemed offensive yet ENEMY UNSEEN flew by under the radar unscathed. This movie succeeded at being racist even when it was denouncing racism.

Meanwhile, the witchdoctor yells at Roxanne in his native tongue while shaking spastically. It's like a charismatic religious experience combined with an epileptic seizure done in the form of a rhythmic dance. Judge Bruno Tonioli only gave him a 6.

The group makes camp and Malonga decides this is a good time to relay the legend of the "crocodile people" (FYI: Not The Asylum's way late mockbuster of THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE). He talks of a tribal war long ago and how a tribe went into hiding in Crocodile Valley never to be seen for 200 years. They're said to haunt the jungles and worship crocodiles as gods. They became known as the Crocodile People. I say if they want to remain the stuff of legend then maybe they should consider not hogtying dead honkies to crocodile woodcarving and sending them floating back down the river as a calling card.

Right on cue, here comes a giant croc that actually manages to sneak up on an extraneous merc character on first watch. It chomps his leg and begins dragging him down to the water, only succeeding in tripping an explosive booby trap that blows them both up. How did it not set it off when it was stalking the guy? Damn those ninja-like crocs!

Pencil will be the next to die. I say good riddance. Shot with arrows and left to be croc meat. He deserved worse. There's never a Sarlac Pit around when you need one.

Steiger gets shot with a dart dipped in snake poison. Steiger reacts by borrowing a line from Jesse Ventura. "Die? I don't have time to die." Ah, but does he have time to bleed?

Malanga disappears, the father panics, Josh picks up the poisoned Steiger, and they attempt to flee. They don't get far before being surrounded by tribesmen. One is confused because Josh is black and assumes he must be with another tribe called the Watussi. Watussi? The Watussi tribe? That had to have been a joke on the writers' part.

National Geographic photo of the rarely seen Grizzlor tribe of Africa

Papa Gordon panics and decides to make things worse for everyone by gunning down a young native. That Croc person will soon be revealed to be the witchdoctor's son. Bad move. Josh and Steiger will get captured and imprisoned alongside Roxanne. They're even kind enough to cure Steiger's fatal poisoning. Sure, why not? The Crocodile People may be savages but they're not barbarians.

Elsewhere, hours later and dark out, father Gordon is still running around the jungle like the shakiest gun in West Africa, opening fire at random whenever he's spooked by a noise. A rescue helicopter will pass overhead and Gordon flakes out firing his machine gun into the air scaring them off. Yes, let's go pick up the guy shooting in our general direction.

Good news: Gordon gets captured and reunited with his beloved daughter. Bad news: the angry witchdoctor has him fed to the crocs moments later. They're reunion consisted mostly of screams and "I love you's" - mostly screams.

Did I mention that the witchdoctor with the bitchin' headgear can summon crocodiles by playing a flute? First that headdress and now a croc-calling flute. This witchdoctor was tailor-made to have been a villain getting his butt kicked by Sheena or Beastmaster or Ator, the Fighting Eagle, certainly not Vernon Wells with a machine gun.

Six days pass and the best escape plan Steiger can come up with is for him and Josh to beat up the next tribesman that opens their bamboo cell door and make a run for it. Whatever works, I suppose. The escape plan does not work as well as they hoped. Thank goodness for the suddenly returning from wherever the hell he'd been hiding for the past 20-minutes Malanga. At least Steiger escapes. Josh, however, is still a captive and now the tribe is planning to sacrifice Roxanne to their croc god. Who cares if she's not a virgin? She's white meat, a rare delicacy the croc gods don't get to taste that often.

Steiger's new gameplan? First, rescue Josh. Second, burn the village to the ground. Third, if it has black skin and is not named Josh or Malanga, shoot it. This finale almost has you feeling sorry for this tribe. Sure, their savages and all, but they're just doing what they've been doing for the past 200 years. Is it really their fault some rich Caucasian bought their land and sent more whities into their territory to take issue with their religious ceremonies? This movie is made with the same sort mentality as a film that would portray the Spanish conquistadors as all being stand-up noblemen saving themselves from barbaric Aztecs.

"Alright, who'll give me ten dollars for Vernon Wells? I got ten dollars right here. Ten. Who'll give me twenty. Twenty? I got twenty dollars in the back. Twenty. Who'll give me twenty-five. This is a one of a kind Vernon Wells. I got twenty-five. Who'll give me thirty? Thirty? Thirty? Thirty? Thirty? No one? No takers? Going once. Going twice. Sold! To man in the back with bone in his nose."

Recapping the movie thus far: heroes that aren't very heroic, victims that aren't very sympathetic, villains that aren't very villainous, and crocodiles that aren't every life-like. The fake crocs are the best part of the film but there isn't enough croc-on-human action to fully satisfy; too much stock nature footage and not enough of that swanky animatronic croc head that blew up earlier. Truth be told, ENEMY UNSEEN is rather dull, salvaged only by a few brief spurts of b-movie greatness. And that awesome headdress. God bless that headdress.

Josh and Malanga survive with the help of a young kid who, in one of those amazing coincidences that can only happen in a movie such as this, turns out to be the daughter of Malanga's long missing sister. Too bad they didn't search the village a little longer or else they might have also found Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, and the Lindberg baby too.

Now comes the worst moment of the movie: for whatever reason, all the shooting and burning prompts the witchdoctor to remove his headdress. This was a very bad move, not just because the headdress made him look so much cooler, but because without the dual-croc headdress he kind of resembles Rog from “What's Happening?” but with monkey teeth and tribal make-up. Just like that he went from being a worthwhile jungle fantasy villain to looking like the Urkel of African witchdoctors.

What you talkin' bout, Kunta Kinte?

In order to escape Steiger and Roxanne have to swim to the airboat that's still just sitting there from days earlier as the natives chuck spears at them. Once they make it to the airboat the tribesmen stop attacking, as if they know they've lost and decide to call it a day.

Not so fast! Steiger has to survive a croc attack, which he does because this enormous croc couldn't bite through his big leather boot and also just gave up. Was the leather laced with reinforced concrete?

Safe at last, Steiger and the seven-day widow share a kiss. Mel who?

And then the tribal leader, the witchdoctor in dire need of a headdress, charges at them from out of the brush and... Gets his butt easily handed to him just as Rog from “What's Happening?” would if he tried to physically manhandle a lumberjack twice his side. The witchdoctor then gets fed to the crocs for good measure. Maybe they'll turn the table and make a headdress out of him. It only seems fair.

Josh, Malanga, and Malanga's long lost nephew all pile onto the airboat and everyone rides off into the sunset celebrating modern man's superiority over their primitive cousins.

The movie: 2 out of 5 stars
The headdress: 5 FUCKIN' STARS!!!

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE TARZAN AND THE LOST CITY