Bad Movie Club: Raiders of the Magic Ivory

1988 action adventure

Bad Movie Rating: 2/5 (Fred: 3/5; Jeremy: 2/5; Josh: 3/5; Libby: no rating)

Rating: 6/20

Plot: A couple of badasses, including one named "Sugar," are hired to venture into the mysteriously redundant Hell From Which No One Returns in order to find a magically glowing stone. And about 5,000 nameless people die!

"Sugar," one of those types of actors who just shouldn't be an action hero, is played by James Mitchum, and yes, that is the son of Robert Mitchum. See the resemblance?

If I had any female readers (I don't think I do), they're not reading any further because they'd be far too distracted by James Mitchum, son of Robert Mitchum, in that fetching red silky robe. With that mustache, that come hither look, and that mustache. Mitchum and his co-star and killing buddy Mark do a lot of walking in this movie, probably more walking than in any of those Hobbit movies. Christophers Ahrens played Mark, and he wasn't in many movies. However, one was apparently an adaptation of Maldoror. About a zillion army men, some kind of witch doctor guy, and some cannibalistic cult members. Oh my! Villains in this becomes less threatening as this goes on since you figure out after about the 500th person has been shot or blown up that any new threat is just going to add to the body count. You have to appreciate a body count like this one though. It's a body count of Weng Wengian proportions! We also learned that you can drive from Vietnam to Miami by train, but probably only if you've got James Mitchum's mustache. This whole movie's about as macho as movies get. All the punching and shooting and blowing up gets you about halfway there, but add the way the characters so liberally throw around "son of a bitches" or "bastards" and you've really got something that'll put hair on your chest. Because that's how men talk! And the whole movie ends up with [Spoiler Alert!] James Mitchum becoming the keeper of the celestial peace which I kind of wish Robert Mitchum would have died before having to experience. The whole thing actually makes me a little sad.