Trancers

Dennis here, and yes as you all know my last review (which happened to be the best Time Rider review ever written) was so intensely awesome it tripped out our home circuit and deleted itself. Sorry folks.

So I'm going to try again and write a just-below-"super-rad" review this time.

You don't need to know what a Trancer is!

Oh wait..this is TRANCERS!!
Starring one of the greatest action stars of all time: Tim Thomerson (who you probably all know as the helicopter pilot in Uncommon Valor [which, on another related note, also starred Fred Ward of Time Rider!!]) Isn't it crazy how all these movies are interconnected?!

Anywho, our movie stars Tim Thomerson as the badass loose-cannon futurecop JACK DETH. Now take a good look at the poster above....if there was ever a movie that you couldn't judge by its cover, this is it. Here we see Deth wearing a futuristic space suit with shiny gloves and a large laser gun...in reality, the "future" looks like this:

Cars with roll bars are all the rage in the 2230s

Deth is your typical hard-ass cop who plays by his own rules. Instead of doing his actual police duties, he roams the future world hunting down the last remnants of a gang known as the "Trancers". From the opening narrative we gather that Deth has just killed the gang's leader, Whisler. Now this movie is so action packed and hardcore there's absolutely no time to explain what a Trancer is. instead we just watch Deth fight one to the death - and almost lose. Basically a Trancer is a regular person until Jack Death comes along, and then they turn into violent zombie-like monsters, brainwashed (or "Tranced") by Whisler. However, it seems the only evil the Trancers intend to do is trying to kill Jack Deth. The first Trancer is a waitress at a diner, who is serving the guests peacefully until Deth shows up, and then she beats the living crap out of him before he gets a lucky shot off and kills her.

"Gotcha now, Bitch!"

Notice how he is on the ground, utensils knocked everywhere, and he's covered in boiling water? The Trancer pretty much dominated for the whole fight, he just got lucky enough to pull his gun in time.

After his encounter and we see how badass Deth is, we get a brief glimpse of life in the future: Los Angeles is flooded, and Jack Deth spends his weekends looting hubcaps from the submerged metropolis. The entire police force has to remind Deth that he's a cop and has a real job and real police duties that he simply refuses to do.

Luckily for Deth, his arch-nemesis Whisler is still alive, and living in the 1980s. In a sort of Terminator plot, Whisler has traveled back in time to kill the ancestors of the current world's council, thereby making him the king of the future world. The only choice is to send Jack Deth back in time to stop him; and kill any Trancers he finds.

And so Deth is transported back to the 80s with a .38 special, a time stopping watch, and a badass attitude. When he arrives back in time he finds himself in his own ancestor's body, and is partnered with his current girlfriend Leena. He also finds that Whisler is in the body of the current Police Chief.

Jack Deth doesn't try to hide the fact that he's from the future at all. He immediately changes his ancestor into Jack Deth and starts telling Leena about his mission.

Dry hair's for squids!

Naturally she rejects his tall tale, and so Deth stalks her to her job as a Santa's Helper. Bad move, Jack Deth - that normal polite Santa Clause is actually a TRANCER!!

Again we see Jack deth getting his ass kicked..this time by Santa Clause.

Luckily a local police officer intervenes and Jack Deth is able to get another lucky shot off and kill Santa. This convinces Leena to believe his story and help him. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop Deth from being bested by the Trancers at every turn. He visits the local tanning salon to rescue one of the council's ancestors, only to find that he has already been turned into one of the monsters...

As expected, things don't turn out so good for Jack Deth at the tanning salon either

Luckily Deth is saved by Leena, only to be confronted by Whisler himself upon exiting the building. He has with him an entire firing squad of police officers and orders them to fire. Oh No! Luckily, Jack Deth is very lucky...and he has the time stopping watch! Now according to the scientists, the watch "turns one second into ten". Its more like "turns one second into however long Jack Deth needs"...he spend the first 6 second just staring in amazement, then he grabs Leena and makes a dash past the firing squad. He stops to stare at Whisler, but opts not to kill him then. Then he runs around the corner, gets into his car, and drives away before time resets itself.

Nothing says "badass" like a trench coat

The rest of the movie centers on finding the remaining council ancestor Hap Ashby, a washed up has-been baseball player, who is now a drunkard and a hobo living in the sewers. Deth finds him just as Whisler does, and an epic showdown takes place: First Deth is almost killed by a Tranced police officer when Leena blasts him, then they escape on an action packed moped-chase through the city, ending on the top of a 3 story building. Whisler has Leena hostage and shoves her off the edge. Deth activates his time watch, runs to the edge (doesn't push Whisler off), and then runs down to catch Leena. meanwhile the drunken Hap Ashby, who is hiding in a nearby dumpster and can produce alcohol by sheer force of will, begins hurling bottles of liquor at Whisler until he finally falls off the building. From here, Jack Deth injects him with a time-antidote, sending him back to the future with no body to arrive in, ultimately erasing him from existence.

Time Rider

Wow... it's been awhile. It's a good thing nobody reads this. For those of you who do (Chris) here's what happened. Dennis originally wrote the greatest Time Rider review of all time. Then the power went out and it was lost for all time.... Everyone knows how lazy we at the RDCFAS are so we never bothered to write a new one...

Til now...

3 years before Marty McFly would take his fateful trip back to 1955, there was one ultimate time travel movie. Time Rider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann!

Yes, we did select this movie
based on the poster.

Lyle Swan is played by Fred Ward of Tremors fame (Remember Tremors? When Kevin Bacon fakes out the Tremor at the end? What a cool dude Kevin Bacon is!) But waaaaay before he's the Time Rider, he's just an everyday motorbike enthusiast racing in the Baja 1000. It's some big cross country race over there... near Mexico...Rock a wiki on it if you need to know. This blog isn't about races y'know.

PANAMA!

 For the first 15 mins of the film, we're just watching Lyle Swann race his motorbike over rough terrain. From his POV. For 15 mins. It's just the camera rocking up and down while it flies across the land at 90 mph with Eddie Van Halen providing the soundtrack. If you don't vomit from the motion sickness, you're surely spew from the awesomeness. Unfortunately Swann gets lost, despite his super hi-tech helmet. It's got zoom, night vision, GPS, infrared, x-ray, and it protects his skull. There's also a button to make the visor go up and down. It's actually pretty nifty. But like we said, despite his super hi-tech helmet, he gets lost.

Doesn't matter what century it is, Lyle Swann's still a dick

This next part's important. Pay attention, huh? Now as we all know, top secret experiments of the utmost importance take place where there's no people, but somehow they find their ways to interrupt them (see Spider-man 3). The top secret government (?) lab is conducting Project: Time Rider, an experiment where they send a trashcan back in time. Who knows where the "Rider" part of the experiment is... it's just a trash can. Luckily for us, Lyle Swann stumbles upon this little science deal and is sent back in time too!

This man can't believe he's just met the dude from Tremors!

1877... Civilization is gone. Deserts sprawl in every direction. Old men in animal skins cook fire on fire spits. Cowboys ride around on horses, shooting pistols. Lyle Swann thinks he's in Mexico. Yes, the entire movie Lyle Swann is oblivious to the fact he's gone back in time. THE ENTIRE MOVIE. He rides around pursued by a gang of villainous cowboys who reason "that Robert E. Lee could've won the Civil War if he'd had one of those devil wheel machines." They eventually get it, primarily because Swann is busy shacking up with his grandmom. Ugh I almost forgot about that part... There's this chick, Belinda Bauer (she was in Robocop 2. I love that movie) and she's into strange future men apparently.

Ok... while Marty McFly danced around the issue of incest, Swann dives right in. to be fair, it's not so much that he's fornicating with his grandmom...it's more like he's fathering his own blood line. But to be certain, it's definitely sick. It's not very subtle either. It's more like "Hey this movie's been an hour of driving that damn bike around. Why don't you do the chick from Robocop 2 now?"

Eventually both her and the bike get kidnapped, so Swann has to team up with the baddest mofo in 1877, some shaggy dog-looking Ranger. Actually for a short time during the end, it turns into "Time Rider: The Adventures of the Shaggy-Haired Ranger". He sneaks into the enemy camp and snaps a dude's neck, which sprays arterial blood onto the Ranger's face. That, sir, is a SERIOUS neck snap.

Swann believes he's dazzling these "Mexicans"
with his Glo stick...

The exciting climax finds Time Rider, his bike, and the chick atop a cliff with the enemies in pursuit. It's dire now. There's no where to go but down. Is this the end of Time Rider?!

Not sure why the helicopter
spins outta control...

Thankfully no (but actually yes) the scientists from 1982 have sent a helicopter back in time to save Lyle Swann! Appparently the whole "we can't screw with the past by sending Fred Ward or helicopters back in time" doesn't apply. To be fair, even Doc Brown says "To Hell with it", right? So the scientists grab Swann only and take off for the future. As the credits roll, you can just barely here the scientists trying to explain to Swann that he was back in time, while he guffaws at their claims. Oh and the villain hell-bent on getting the Timebike?

He got too close to
the "Devil's Flying Machine"