Rock Monster - SPECIAL GUEST REVIEW

31Mar08

Here is a special guest review from our friend IncognitoBurrito, since TJ and I are giant slackers and haven’t written a review in a thousand years. I could not find a movie poster for Rock Monster, so here is a picture of a different monster who also happens to be made of rocks, just so you can get the idea.

     So if you were a slacker 20-something that had been in college for seven years, what would you do if you got a letter saying you’d inherited a house from a relative you never knew?            

If you’re a slacker named Jason, you’d apparently rustle up some Argonauts, er I mean, fellow slackers, and backpack your way across the former Soviet Union to some town called “ Ivanovo ” (bear with me on the spellings here).  On the way Jason’s bus breaks down and he and Tweedle Dum (the whiny Brit), Tweedle Dee (the also whiny, but mostly horny, and completely nerdy black guy) and “Toni” (the bossy, bitchy female friend) decide to hike through the woods to the next town.   On the way they find a sword stuck in a rock.  Never having read “The Once and Future King” or even seen the Disney version of King Arthur, they decide to take the sword.  Naturally, the only one that can get it loose is our hero, Jason, Lord of the Slackers.  Once they reach the village, they flirt with the world’s sexiest, bustiest, Gypsy-esque waitress, and show her the sword.  The previously completely unfriendly townspeople become completely hostile, and our intrepid doofi are saved by “Demeter”.  Look, people if you are in a monster movie, and your savior is bald, has a maniacal laugh, frightens all the people in the town he grew up in, AND wears a black trench coat, he’s probably the bad guy.  Especially since the busty gypsy lady HAS to be a good, well, guy.          

Demeter convinces our gang to put the sword back to calm the town, but on the way whiny Brit keeps whining and decides he’ll just wait in the woods and the rest of the gang can return the sword.  Of course, whiny Brit-guy gets crushed by the rock monster, and his blood gets slurped up by the rock monster’s roots.  Gee, I didn’t know rocks even HAD roots.          

The rest of the gang finally gives up and heads back to town.  Gypsy-lady, who we find is named Cassandra, gets Jason alone and tells him about the Rock Monster, which is really the trapped soul of the great wizard who was defeated by Jason’s ancestor, Lazar.  She also tells Jason that the mayor did not write him the letter about his aunt. Demeter did because he needed to lure a Lazar heir to town to free the sword and raise the rock monster to life.          

The townspeople, led by a former soldier of a still unnamed Soviet-style army, provides the townspeople, and Toni with guns to hunt the monster, while Tweedle-Dee decides he’s not risking life and limb and decides to hike through the woods alone to the next town.  Needless to say this is a bad plan, and he gets his skull cracked open and becomes a Rock Monster cocktail. After a few really, really bad CGI fight scenes, the townspeople think they’ve killed the monster when with the help of a rocket launcher (wielded, not by the soldier, or even a nice buff Slavic farm-boy, but by Toni, in all her bitchy glory) and Jason and his mighty sword.  Turns out though, that the only thing that can permanently stop the monster is the sword, once it has the “keystone” in place. (The keystone is ruby that Demeter is using as bling)     

More stupid fighting, and our hero winds up buried under a pile of rock-monster, thanks to Toni, who now has a freaking tank.  Demeter comes and raises the rock monster again, takes the sword from Jason and takes Jason back to his sinister lair to explain his motives, and fill the holes in the plot with exposition.  (Why do bad guys do this? Seriously, just kill the good guy while you have the chance, don’t waste time gloating!) anyway, turns out Demeter needed Jason to get the sword so Demeter could insert the keystone, and once daylight hits the stone, transfer the wizard’s power, knowledge and imprisoned soul from the Rock Monster into himself, believing that by doing this Demeter could live forever and rule the world, and finally get beautiful Cassandra.          

Jason escapes while Demeter is meeting with the town’s mayor, who promises to hand over Cassandra to Demeter in exchange for sparing the villagers further stomping and slurping.  Jason, Toni, Soldier-Dude, and Buff Farm boy Johan (who is now in love with bossy/bitchy Toni) make a stand in the town square, realizing that egomaniacs like to conduct magic ceremonies with an audience.  Sure enough Demeter arrives, leading the rock monster, and a bound and gagged Cassandra; spouts some more threats and really bad dialogue about conquering the world, starting with poor, muddy little Ivanovo.          

As dawn breaks, Demeter raises the sword to the sun and really, really bad CGI green lightening flashes between him and the monster.  Jason, channeling both his mighty ancestor and apparently, Indiana Jones, cracks a whip (Ivanovo must have quite the leather goods store, whips, gags and black leather trench coats are readily available in this movie), and knocks the sword free.  He grabs it and stabs Demeter with the completely nonsensical line “you first”.  YOU FIRST? You first what???           

 The monster, freed from the green lightening begins rampaging again, but now Jason has the sword, with the keystone, and with a few slashes and stabs he manages to wound it, but he can’t kill it.  Toni yells something about sending the creature back to the earth that spawned it, and Jason, remember a painting in his aunt’s cottage, stabs the earth, which cracks open. The monster falls, but not before it grabs Demeter’s body.            

The earth seals up on the monster and his master, Toni decides to stay with Farm boy for a couple weeks until college starts back up, and Cassandra decides to marry Jason and they board a bus back to civilization, completely forgetting that Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dums parents might be wondering what happened to their little darlings.          

Then the movie commits its worst sin yet. Worse than the bad CGI, the completely unfunny dialogue, worse than the stereotypical villains and heroes.  As the bus pulls away from the town square, there is an ominous rumble from beneath the cobblestones, and the cobblestones move as though, well, a rock monster was trying to break free.           

Yeah, right, you guys are getting a sequel; don’t book any other acting gigs for the next couple of years.  Just wait by the phone for a call-back on Rock Monster 2!

         

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