It was the worst of (movie) times... Alien from LA

1988.  The Soviet Union started its program of economic reform they called "perestroika," the Winter Olympics were held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Oliver North is charged with conspiracy to defraud, Nelson Mandella turns 70 (still imprisoned), George H.W. Bush is elected the 41st president of the United States.  But all this aside, 1988 brings us a theatrical treat.  An interpretation of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth that is sure to endure in the hearts of millions forever... Ladies and Gentleman, Alien from LA.

This little movie stars a young Kathy Ireland.  Yes, Kathy Ireland.  Just a pretty face?  Or multitalented?  I mean, sure!  She LOOKS good, but can she ACT?  Well… Let’s dig in…

Wanda is a young woman from California.  She has just been dumped by her boyfriend because she isn’t daring enough.  And holy cow!  Her voice is squeaky and she wears thick glasses… SOOOOO unattractive.  How can anyone find her pretty?  After receiving word that her absentee father is dead, she travels to his most recent residence.  IN AFRICA.  Wanda goes through his papers and finds many references to Atlantis.  She explores his last archeological dig site and checks it out.  She falls down a (not so) bottomless pit and finds herself in a different world.  Atlantis, as it turns out is a crashed spaceship that sank below ground and the inhabitants formed a separate society there (and became Australian, apparently).  Wanda, now convinced that her father is alive and somewhere in Atlantis, sets off to find him with the help of Gus ( a miner, from “Down Under.”  GET IT????  It’s FUNNY!).  Soon her naivety lands her in the cross hairs of a low life informant who “sells” her to the highest bidder.  At first this is a criminal named Mambino, but soon General Pykov (a government agent) wins out.  She is captured, but with Gus’s help and a little assistance from a rogue named Charmin (every one of these characters commenting on her squeaky voice or her “big bones.”)  Despite the effort, she is imprisoned in “Government House.”  There, she finds her long lost dad and together, they try to escape.  Eventually, the leader of the Atlantian government just lets them go as long as they never reveal Atlantis’s existence to the surface world.

Wanda, having found her sense of adventure, has shed her glasses and struts along the beach in a bikini.  (But OMG!  IS that your REAL voice???)  Her ex-boyfriend sees her and tries to worm his way back into her life, but she is somehow able to resist his charms.  Especially when she sees Charmin riding up on a motorcycle.  Apparently the brief scene he shared with her was enough to follow her to the surface world.  They ride off into the sunset.  The end.

In all seriousness, although I really love the aesthetic they were going for (cyber punk), this movie is just awful.  Kathy Ireland cannot act.  Her voice is annoyingly squeeky and she whines her way through most of it.  Gus's accent is HORRIBLY inconsistent and the addition of Charmin is tacked on and makes very little sense to the flow of the screenplay.  Not to mention it follows that 80's formula of trying to make the audience believe that just because a beautiful girl wears glasses and a pony tail she is unattractive.  I am sorry!  But Kathy Ireland has "big bones"?  Seriously?  And the addition of the love interest so late in the movie seems like the screenwriters just plain forgot to add him in and quickly wrote it in after filming.  It was tacked on and just plain weird.  The best thing about this movie is that Mystery Science Theater did one of it's funniest episodes around it.

And that's just about all I CAN say about that!  *DULL SURPRISE*

GGC