Friday 8 September 2017

Wonder Women (1973)



Renowned athletes are mysteriously disappearing.  On the hook for half a million dollars of insurance over the latest disappearance, Lloyds of London hire ace investigator Mike Harbor to find the missing man.

Harber (played by Russ Hagen, who looks kinda like a cut price Dirk Benedict) is the kind of man who keeps a sawn-off shotgun in his safari suit, but even he isn't really ready for where this case is going to go: black market brain transplants, pubescent assassins, murderous mutants, and an army of kung fu femme fatales.

The sad thing about Wonder Women is that it takes that gonzo list of ingredients and produces such a tepid final product.  A big part of this is that it doesn't really build or integrate the components at all.  The killer kid, for instance, disappears out of the film about halfway through without any kind of resolution, while the mutants are clumsily introduced all of five minutes before they're needed for their murderous rampage.

The film's second major flaw is the pacing.  Even at about 85 minutes, it feels pretty stretched at times, with one chase scene in particular going on and on and on and on.  And on.  It does have a couple of moments of quite neat stunt work, I have to admit, but that doesn't really compensate for how interminable it feels.

At the end of the day, if you're looking to get your "70s cheapie" groove on, there are better options than this out there.  Black Mama White Mama comes to mind, for one.

No comments:

Post a Comment