An Exercise In Nonsense

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Captain Invincible helped win World War 2 but couldn't survive the McCarthy hearings. Angry that his country turned its back on him, he moved to Australia and became a drunk. Thirty years later, Mr. Midnight, his greatest villain, comes back and steals the hypno ray. The U.S. government now needs the Captain back. But is he even interested?Directed by Philippe Mora (Mad Dog Morgan, The Beast Within, Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf), this Australian super hero comedy musical is a lost film. It never played in U.S. theaters due to Jensen Farley Pictures (who also distributed Chained Heat, Curtains, The Boogens and more) going out of business, but it was released on video. It also bombed really badly in Australia, so it's not a film that anyone thinks about.It's a strange bird, a mix of pathos at times (the idea of superheroes being forced to retire because of the McCarthy hearings was first done in 1979's JSA stories in Adventure Comics and 1985's America vs. the Justice Society) and musical scenes, featuring three songs from The Rocky Horror Picture Show team of Richard O'Brien and Richard Hartley,Starring Alan Arkin as the Captain and Christopher Lee as Mr. Midnight, the film really explores how a superhero would have to relearn his powers after decades of alcohol abuse, as well as how a supervillain would really operate in the modern world. It was written by Andrew Gaty, Peter Smalley (Dead End Drive-In) and Steven de Souza (Commando, Bad Dreams, Die Hard, Hudson Hawk, 48 Hours and many more).The black and white sequences were my favorite parts of the film, showing how Captain Invincible gave up being a hero and how he got his powers. The music is pretty interesting, particularly Lee's explanation of how there was evil before there was humanity. Also, I love Mr. Midnight's sidekick, Julius, who looks like a naked human horse person.Also of note, there's a scene where vacuum cleaners attack our hero. The scene made so little sense, the original pick for Captain Invincible, James Coburn (Derek Flint from In Like Flint and Our Man Flint) dropped out of the movie!Read more at http://bit.ly/2BuJ1hb

This is my kind of movie, I had never heard of it before, and only found it due to a purchase I made from Amazon, noticed this title as well. I am in chronic pain, and take advantage of any distraction from reality to take my mind off it. This movie did just that! On par with Attach of the killer tomato's, killer clowns form outer space, rocky horror picture show. Just as corny as any of them, This is well worth enjoying, laughing over, and forgetting your everyday worries and care for awhile. God Bless Mr Arkin to not have any pride when he made this film (I don't see how he could have, such a big gamble) But then again I had not heard of it until a couple weeks ago. Mr Allen Arken does provide his high quality of humor to this film. As usual his humor has again occurred before its time.

There was a time when i was a kid, my mother used to rent some strange film's this was one of them, it's been quite a while since i've seen this and i only look forward to picking this up on DVD, What i can remember is The great Alan Arkin is Captain Invincible, and The alway's great Sir Christopher Lee, is his arch nemesis who with the aid of his sidekick, a Sock puppet of some sort, decide to take control of New York, The Return of Captain Invincible is seriously for Alan Arkin Fan's and Sir Christopher Lee( who in fact belt's out some sort of impromptu show-tune! Apparently George Miller of Mad Max, and that terrible pig movie 'Babe' had something to do with this curio, So that's All i can recall until i then watch this space for a much decent rating and review!

I first saw this film as part of my ongoing plan to (eventually) see every work of Christopher Lee, and I must admit that I was utterly baffled. Moments are truly fantastic, and genuinely funny, but the plot generally is exceptionally weak and in places drags quite monstrously. The poor token love story does little to help, and one cannot help but wonder if it was merely added to pad out the film to a more respectable 90ish minutes. Although both the humour and the film generally appealed to me, I could understand that if you were not a fan of any of the actors or the general "cult" genre, you could be in for one of the most taxing evenings of your life. Despite being supposedly the most expensive film ever made in Australia in 1983, the special effects are decidedly dodgy, and it is really only the increasingly bizarre musical numbers which bring this film back from the edge of catastrophe. The DVD box claims "It's a comedy .. it's a fantasy ... it's a musical ... it's an action adventure"; I would simply say that it's entertainment.