MegaForce

Dir: Hal Needham

1982

*/***** (rating somewhat undecided)

I’m a big Hal Needham fan. I grew up on films like Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run and Hooper and Rad are two of the most underrated films of all time. You could never accuse Needham of ever making a masterpiece of modern cinema, but even when his films were laughable they were utterly brilliant. Megaforce might just be his most laughable and most brilliant film of all. Needham described the film as “Kind of a version of James Bond done with a helluva lot of less budget and no Roger Moore, but it was a high tech, good "right wing" film and I thought it was kinda interesting.” The film is actually a lot more like a live-action version of Thunderbirds, although the actors a bit more puppet like. The plot involves a conflict between two fictional countries; the peaceful Republic of Sardun and their aggressive neighbour Gamibia. Unable to defend themselves from a Gamibian incursion, Sardun sends Major Zara (played by the beautiful Persis ‘why does the Enterprise require the presence of carbon units’ Khambatta) and General Byrne-White (Edward ‘Yo Devon’ Mulhare) to ask the help of MegaForce – a secret army composed of international soldiers from throughout the western world, equipped with advanced weapons and vehicles. MegaForce is led by Hunter, a jump-suit wearing go-getter with a slight beard and spiky hair. You can tell he’s in charge because all the other guys touch him and he’s got the biggest bulge, Major Zara stands no chance and immediately falls in love with him, as does the audience. All MegaForce personnel wear the flag of their origin country on their sleeve, apart from Hunter’s red-neck right-hand man Dallas who wears the Confederate flag. MegaForce live up to their name and basically blow the heck out of Gurerra, I suppose you could say they were what we had before drones were invented. It’s not really clear what MegaForce really are but I suppose you could say they are like the opposite of the UN. Instead of a united force for peace, they are a united force of destruction – no politics, they just blow the heck out of who they like and no one country can be blamed. The most pointless film ever made was Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s Team America: World Police. Pointless because, as a direct spoof of MegaForce, it failed to realise that it was neither as funny nor as ridiculous as the film it was trying to send up. Barry Bostick’s Hunter is far more of a string puppet than any of the Team America: World Police character ever were, although when I watch the film now all I imagine I’m watching is a drugged up dream Mayor Randall Winston is having. Amazingly, after destroying Gamibia, their leader Gurerra can’t hide is admiration for Hunter and gives him and his huge package a big thumbs up, just before he presumably mops up the brains, limbs and intestines of his comrades. The plot really doesn’t matter and I can let the disgustingly ultra-conservative message slide, the best thing by far about the movie is that Hunter’s motorcycle can fly! It may look like a hairdryer on wheels but boy does that baby go, he can even fly upside-down! I’m not sure what substitutes a good or a bad ‘right-wing’ movie but I liked it better than Triumph of the Will and it was thankfully much shorter. MegaForce is what you get when a patriotic stuntman (and part time Ponzi-scheme fraudster) makes a movie; explosions, nasty foreign bad guys, terrible jokes, more explosions and costumes designed by the toy company Mattel. Needham spent ridiculous amounts of money on real tanks, real cannons and custom made vehicles and no time whatsoever on script or character development. It is impossible to tell whether the film was meant to be taken seriously or not and that’s what makes it golden. The mystery continues, with Bostwick claiming years later that the Pentagon "tried to stop the movie" by withholding 40 army tanks needed for the bigger battle sequences because the movie's strike force "was very close to covert CIA strike forces still in existence."He also went on to say "You know what's good about this film? It's plausible. We need an international force like this to keep the peace. I wouldn't mind betting that one day there's a real Megaforce operating somewhere in the world." Are there people who think that MegaForce is a serious film? Is MegaForce meant to be a serious film? Or is Bostwick such a legend that he still refuses to let the character go, either way, MegaForce is amazing in the good sense of the word and the bad.