Paramount brings you another classic movie in their “I Love the 80’s” on DVD series.
Val Kilmer has had a few ups and down over his 25 year acting career. He has turned in some amazing performances such as Jim Morrison in “The Doors”, and Doc Holiday in “Tombstone”. He’s also starred in some major crapfests (I’m looking at you “Mindhunters”!). Before all of this, he kicked off his Hollywood career with a pair of brilliant comedies, the most well known of the two being “Real Genius”. The other being the 1984 WWII spy flick spoof Top Secret!.
From the same writers and directors who brought you such classics as “Airplane!” and “Police Squad!”, Top Secret! tells the story of Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer), an American pop singer who takes part in a cultural festival held in East Germany. During his stay, he becomes entangled in a resistance movement to find a captive scientist, the father of beautiful Hillary Flammond (Lucy Gutteridge). Along the way, they meet up with a band of rebels composed of memorable characters such as Latrine, Déjà Vu, and Chocolate Mousse.
Skeet Surfing!!
Special Features
– Bonus Limited Edition CD featuring music from Echo & The Bunnymen, INXS, Erasure, and a-ha.
– Group Commentary (Directors Him Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker & more)
– 4 Alternate Scenes
– Storyboards
– Original Theatrical Trailer
Highlights
– A minute and a half scene shot in one take, entirely in reverse, and played backward to give the illusion of it taking place in real time. The dialogue is left in reverse and is said to be “Swedish”.
– Featuring several musical and dance numbers performed by Val Kilmer himself.
– Numerous pop culture and movie references including The Sound of Music, Pac-Man, Casablanca, The Blue Lagoon, Jaws, The Great Escape, and The Wizard of OZ.
– Bookstore owner played by Peter Cushing, known by geeks everywhere as Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars Episode IV.
I know a little German. He’s right over there.
Overall
In the same vein as the Naked Gun and Hot Shots films, this movie is composed almost entirely of sight gags, so many in fact that it needs more than one viewing to catch them all. Some of them fall flat, but most are hilarious. For the most part, any “German” spoken in the movie is actually an old Yiddish saying, or it just translates in to something funny. For instance, one officer replies “Ich liebe Dich, mein Schatz” after getting an order from a superior which translates to “I love you, Honey”. The comedic timing is spot on, as all the actors play their parts perfectly straight.
How silly can you get? Yeah, yeah!
The plot is a little thin, but that’s not really what these movies are about. Spoofs are about laugh-a-minute gags, over the top situations, and equally over the top dialogue. Also, before contemporary movies like “Epic Movie”, and “Meet The Spartans” did nothing but insert characters and imagery from other movies to try and get a cheap laugh, Top Secret! and it’s brethren actually pay homage to the movies that they reference in a way that doesn’t feel contrived.
Worth watching for this one reason: Have you ever seen a bar room fight scene that takes place entirely underwater? If you answered no, then watch Top Secret! immediately.
ComicsOnline gives Top Secret! 4 out of 5 shotgun toting surfers.
We at ComicsOnline understand that when deadlines approach, sometimes you end up with typos on your packaging. We admonish everyone to look up the rules regarding correct use of apostrophes. You can use ’80s or 80s, but 80’s is just wrong unless you’re talking about something that belongs to 80. If we assert that this and other awesome films like it produced in the decade known as the 1980s or ,if contracted, as the ’80s or simply the 80s, belong to that decade, then wouldn’t the apostrophe end up at the very end? Wouldn’t we use 80s’ and pronounce it something like eightieses?
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