Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Assault on Precinct 13

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Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 01-21-2005, 02:44 AM:

What a piece of [bs]

. I remember seeing the original back in '79, and that was also a piece of crap. Gee, if you knew that there were snipers outside the building, then why would you stand in front of the windows, even with the blinds drawn??? Ethan Hawkes looks like a crack addict. Gotta love the violence in this film. Great head shots, pardon the phrase!!!

Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 01-24-2005, 11:12 PM:

Kinda Figured Don wouldn't like this...but I don't care. I thought this move was pretty damn good for a January release. Good character Development, plot, and fairly decent writing. The acting didn't suck by the leads(Hawke, Fishburne, and Bello) It even had a pretty shocking twist at the end. Definately not a waste of 2 hours

3.6/5

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 01-29-2005, 08:42 PM:

CINEMA: Wehrenberg Galaxy 16 Cine', Cedar Rapids, IA
SHOW: 29-Jan-2005, 3:30pm
AUDITORIUM: 6
PRESENTATION: 3.1 channel analog
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: No surrounds, no digital, an audible projector, and a rattling climate control
RATING: 2 stars

**WARNING** Review contains detailed plot information that may be considered spoilers, however sarcastic it may be

Ticket taker says "Third door on the right" down the left side of the snack bar. Before you get there, there's at least three other auditoriums with scrolling scoreboard-type signs displaying the movie playing. Not Auditorium 6. It says "WELCOME TO WEHRENBERG THEATRES". But the door is open and slides are running, so Wife #1 and I go in. She leaves almost immediately to find the bathrooms. While she's gone, a couple shows up, peeks in, kind of looks around, and asks "Is this 'Assault on Precinct 13?" I assure them it is. Then a second couple comes in and asks the same question.

The auditorium is a "Cinemark-ish yet cheaper" layout in Wehrenberg purple and orange. It's a two-tier stadium setup (the only one in Iowa I'm aware of) with the lower tier being in a cement pit. The first thing I notice about the layout is that the screen, while being of decent size, is too high. If you like sitting roughly center to the screen height-wise, plan on sitting in the second to last row. The FRONT row is ridiculous. If you sit in the front row and stare forward, you are looking at a cement wall that sits about a foot from the tips of your toes. The bottom of the screen is about six to eight feet above your head. I sat there for the start of the trailers and stared almost straight up in disbelief. If you plan to come here for a show, arrive early. But that's not a problem for THIS movie, with attendance for this show being about eight in a 120-ish seat house.

The plot is a Snoopy favorite...It was a dark and stormy night...New Year's Eve with a snow storm, specifically. Two cops and a fishnet secretary are packing up the contents of their old police station, which is scheduled for demolition. A busload of prisoners are diverted to their location due to the snow. A psychologist who appeared earlier to provide sexual tension also ends up weathered in with the group.

But the Borg collective arrives to assimilate them. The Borg uses their amazing superpowers to shut down all the cell towers, jam the radio transmissions, cut the phone lines, and kill the power. But one of the prisoners is LAWRENCE "THE MAN" FISHBURNE. The rest of the cast is a bunch of weenies who have to rely on THE MAN to get the job done.

They dig up what weapons they can out of the evidence locker, but Fishburne isn't having any of that, choosing instead to make a couple of Molotov Cocktails, setting a Borg on fire, and stealing his weapon instead. Tragically, he misses an opportunity to stand above the burning mutant while turning to the camera and saying "I am SO above this."

There's a lot of explosions and betrayal and dead bodies from there. There is a moment where we think we MIGHT see Fishburne and the fishnet secretary produce one of the hottest sex scenes in the history of cinema, but they don't deliver. That reduces my opinion of this movie by one half star.

This movie could have been really really cool if they did the exact same movie up to the assembly of the marooned cast...then turned it into an all-night "Breakfast Club" type-deal. No bad guys coming in to kill everybody. No explosions. Dialogue, relationships, and maybe some shenanigans. The prisoners get back on the bus at the end (the next morning) and head on their way, and everybody else goes home.

That's not what happens, of course. And actually, Wife #1 insists they weren't really Borg anwway, because Borg don't drive Chevy's. She probably was paying more attention, since it was HER idea to watch this.