Up There

 

We forget how '80s the early '90s were. 1993 is pushing it, but when you're a low budget action movie starring Billy Blanks, you're all in.

Quick Plot: The earth's surface has been poisoned (I should rephrase: humans have polluted and destroyed the air they're supposed to breathe), forcing those that can afford it underground. They're protected by Tracker-Communicators, a martial arts-savvy task force of bodyguards and hunters.

Chief among them is the team of Jason Storm (workout king Billy Blanks) and Zoey Kinsella, daughter of the dead genius who founded the entire city that now keeps the elite safe. When gang leader Nicky Picasso (yes, that's a name) leads his goons in a vicious attack, Zoey is killed. Policy dictates that her body is the property of the underground's lab, and therefore the perfect canvas to test out a new acrobatic supersoldier. 

Jason is rightfully upset, but there's little time to dwell once he's framed for Zoey's murder and banished to the surface. Up there, he teams up with tai chi specialist Sumai (the balletic Bolo Yeung) for a training montage and plan.

At just under 90 minutes long, TC 2000 is about 88% martial arts fighting and 12% half-hearted world building. Don't ask me to show my work, but the math vaguely adds up to some satisfyingly dumb entertainment. Bolo Yeung is incredibly watchable. The villains look like they've emerged from a 2D arcade game into something somewhere between that technology and earth. 

It's a good, very dumb time. Making his film debut, director T.J. Scott (who would go on to helm lots of TV, including a few episodes of my beloved Spartacus) succeeds most when his camera follows the action. Yes, the set is cheap and the costumes are only slightly above the caliber of a Party City sale, but nobody came here for fine art (despite our villain being named, you know, Nicky Picasso). 

High Points

I was unfamiliar with Bolo Yeung before watching TC 2000, so what a treat it was to discover someone so watchable who also happens to have dozens of films to his name

Low Points

Ever watch Top Chef and constantly worry that your kitchen timer is going off because on Top Chef, timers constantly go off? That's annoying. You know what else is annoying? How every scene set in the computer room of TC 2000 has an ambient beep that sounds like a smoke detector. And so at first you pause thinking, "is that MY smoke detector?" And you realize that no, it belongs to the movie, and every time the action RETURNS to this room, you're going to hear it. And pause and worry that you have a carbon monoxide leak. 

Look, TC 2000 isn't a very good movie and there are plenty of other callouts I could make here (having Blanks narrate with less enthusiasm than Harrison Ford in the theatrical Blade Runner cut, for example) but as a new home owner, you have to understand: beeping is scary.

Lessons Learned

Much like Gallagher's humor, the best vessel for communicating tai chi is smashed watermelon

Zoey is Greek for life

Future press conferences will include floor routines

Rent/Bury/Buy

TC 2000 is not a good movie, but it's stuffed with enthusiasm. In the mood for a '90s wasteland that looks like the '80s? Here you go, appropriately hanging out in the junk pile of Amazon Prime.