Jason
X: No Justice, No End in Sight Jason
X: No Justice, No End in SightFor years, critics have been clamoring for the Friday the 13th movie series to take a few chances, be a little risky, a little edgy. Maybe even deliver a message to its audience. The makers have responded with the latest installment, titled Jason X. Who'd have guessed that the silver screen's most notorious throat slasher, Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder), would embrace peace and convert to the Nation of Islam?
Then, who would have ever envisioned the newly renamed Jason X would rise up on a podium, throw off his mask, put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a bow tie, and retort: "Wise up, people! You've been slashed, gashed, stabbed, slit open, skewered, punctured, wounded, BAMBOOZLED!"
I mean, what's next? Freddy Shabazz Krueger?!
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Durgin, I edit your pathetic stabs at humor every week. But, this time, you have gone too far. Do you wanna be held liable by New Line cinema? They have lawyers, Durgin. Lawyers! And they're far more scary than Jason Voorhees. Tell your readers the truth.)
Alright, the truth is the "X" in the title is the Roman numeral for 10. That's right, this is the tenth film in the Friday the 13th series, but the first under the New Line banner. Now, most critics already have a spot picked out on their 10 Worst list for this flick. The great majority of my reviewing brethren are going into the Jason X previews this week sharpening their pens like Jason's machete, ready to use every skewering witticism they've thought of in the last couple of weeks.
But not me.
I'd rather take the high road this time. I would rather discuss the social and geopolitical implications of bringing back a cultural icon of the 1980s. Jason X has its place among post-feminist, expressionistic cinema that rivals those works produced during the Golden Age of avant-garde, Middle European film. One might well consider the thematic ambiguity of...
Ah, hell! There wasn't enough nudity in this film! The movie is one long tease! Here we have a spaceship full of hot, h-o-t hardbodies (ladies, there are guys in the flick you'll wanna see naked, too). But for the most part, we get clothed sex scenes as Jason stalks the corridors of the ship, looking for new prey. I tell you, there was a time where guys were guaranteed breasts in a "Jason" film and their girlfriends were guaranteed a few male buns. Jason X does have a really cool, two-chick topless scene near the end, but you gotta wait through a lot of scenes where the female and male cast members almost get naked, only to-
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Durgin, stop it. Just stop it!)
Alright, what's my review? Hmmmmm. Well, if you have never seen a Friday the 13th movie and have no plans to ever see one, there is nothing on the screen this time out that will make you change your mind. HOWEVER, if you have never seen one of these movies and secretly have always wanted to, this is probably the most fun, accessible, and ambitious of the franchise. And if you are a longtime fan, you will get off on seeing your "hero" Jason thawed out after 400 years and start his killing spree on a spaceship full of muscular marines and nubile female science students.
That's right. It's Jason in Space. And you're also right if you're now muttering to yourself "Alien ripoff." Jason X does rip off Alien and its superior sequel Aliens. It also has elements of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and even Star Trek: The Next Generation (imagine Jason on a holodeck, Trekkers) in it, too. Someone pumped some money into this sequel, the first in the series since 1993. Unfortunately, none of that cash was thrown the way of talented screenwriters.
But I am gonna give this movie its due. It's a heck of a lot more fun than it has any right to be. And by fun, I mean there are some ridiculously twisted killings in the film. The plot of Jason being cryogenically frozen and then resuscitated in the distant post-apocalyptic future is little more than an excuse to get Jason into a confined area where he has a good two dozen victims to bash, slash, hack, and rack. The movie does a great job of giving us characters that within the first 15 minutes we have put into two categories: people we want to see killed and people we want to see in various stages of undress.
The main heroine is the alluring Rowan (Lisa Doig, doing her best Kari Wuhrer), a would-be Jason victim who was frozen with him four centuries earlier. She is thawed out and is quickly put into more danger when she realizes that a greedy scientist (Jonathan Potts) intends to use Voorhees and his uncanny ability to regenerate for profit. Rowan is joined by a muscular Marine (Peter Mensah), a beautiful android (Lisa Ryder), and several others in a mad dash effort to survive.
All creativity was pumped into the kills. The best involved freezing and face bashing. Another guy gets screwed ... literally. And even Jason himself gets more messed up than he normally does at the hands of the fearless android. But the movie's masterstroke is a regenerated "Uber-Jason" that is part-Voorhees/part-Terminator. There are a couple of really funny lines in the movie and I liked the clever nod it made to the early films in the series.
But, hey, the most impressive thing in these movies is still Jason's machete. Jason has always been a blade man, and his choice of cutlery this time out is able to cut through anything it seems. Bone, glass, titanium steel. I tell ya if Jason X tanks at the box office, I foresee a future in Ginsu commercials. Or maybe shaving razors. Voorhees could somehow grumble: "Cuts as close as a blade or your money back."
Too bad movie theaters don't have the same policy.
Jason X is rated R for violence, language, and sexuality.
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