Movie

Alien Fury: Countdown to Invasion (2000)

A cheap sci-fi production with a storyline to match. The main character is a police detective (Dondré T. Whitfield) who investigates a murder, only to stumble across an impending alien invasion. Alien Fury was distributed by Paramount Pictures and notable cast members include Paul Shulze and Stephen Tobolowsky. Hiring them probably exhausted the budget, but the terrible special effects are mercifully sparse.

The plot starts off simply but quickly becomes convoluted. A shady military agency fakes an alien attack to avoid funding cuts, except there really are extraterrestrials out there. The infiltrators look like humans (of course they do) and act normally. Except they need extra nitrogen to survive, so they carry inhalers. Cue a mini-mystery with multiple asthma sufferers suspected of being aliens, complete with bluffs and counter-bluffs.

The detective doesn’t know who to trust and is the only person who can expose a splinter group’s scheme to trigger an interplanetary war. Despite the story being a mind-boggling mess, the movie is never dull, and a muscular henchwoman is a definite bonus. Ava is a villainess who sticks around for the duration and doesn’t need male assistance to kill people.

The movie is hard to find, with no official DVD release and few VHS copies. An uncut version aired on the Horror Channel in the UK (now defunct), which provided the source material for this review.

Villainess

Ava Zurich (Chyna)

This professional wrestler / actress was slated to play the T-X in Terminator 3. While that never happened, Chyna’s relentless security officer offers a taste of what might have been. The movie begins with a nerd attempting to escape an office building while pursued by a shadowy female figure. It’s not long before Ava mounts a motorcycle and cuts off the man’s escape. The villainess shows off her physicality by dragging the wounded employee into range of a high-voltage hand taser. And rather than stun her victim, this weapon is lethal.

The inquisitive detective has a few run-ins with Ava before another guy smuggles out incriminating evidence. The villainess pursues him, though it’s an unfair contest since she chases a pedal cycle on her motorbike. A woman in black leather, racing through the city streets, is a menacing foe. The employee proves more elusive and escapes the assassin thanks to a convenient tram crossing.

The main villain is an alien called Templer, but he mostly talks and leaves the physical stuff to his Ava. She enjoys killing people – all in a day’s work for this ruthless woman. Given her wrestling background, Chyna is well cast as the muscular brute. Fittingly, she outlasts the other villains and is the detective’s final opponent.

After Templer is killed by his wife (later revealed as an alien herself), we get the fight that’s been coming the whole film. First, Ava tries to kill the troublesome cop with her sidearm, then we get the usual heroic gusto when he challenges her to a fair fight. Ava happily accepts these terms and pummel the detective. The muscle woman has the upper hand throughout and is only defeated after the cop grabs Ava’s taser and uses her own weapon against her.

Honourable Mentions: Motorcyle Assassins

Romeo Must Die (2000) – Motorcycle Fighter (François Yip)

A stylish villainess in an otherwise forgettable affair, Yip’s leather-clad killer still merits a mention. The movie is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, set in modern-day Oakland. Jet Li is Han Sing, a man out for revenge after his brother is murdered in an ongoing gang war. Aaliyah – in her debut, and one of only two films she made before her death – is an innocent woman caught in the crossfire.

As expected, there are plenty of martial arts, with a pacifist hero and inventive fights to add originality. The unnamed villainess is a biker assassin who attempts to eliminate the heroes after they uncover the villains’ plot. For the first part of the lengthy chase scene, the rider wears a dark-visored crash helmet, but genre-savvy viewers will know it’s a woman.

After another biker is taken out, the second puts up more of a struggle, surviving a crash to confront Han on foot. Once she’s revealed as female, the good guy gets all chivalric and refuses to hit her. Fortunately, the heroine provides an inventive solution and acts as a proxy fighter to strike the blows. The assassin’s brief appearance ends when she’s knocked back onto a wooden stake and impaled through the heart. We see her death in graphic detail thanks to a bizarre X-ray shot, but that’s it for female villains in this one.

Crusader (2005) – Leila (Laia Blanch)

A European production set in Barcelona, this conspiracy thriller has plenty of star power, including Michael York and Bo Derek. The plot is fairly standard, but the villainess is above average and plays a larger part in proceedings than you might expect.

Hank Robinson (Andrew McCarthy) is an ambitious television reporter who pilfers footage of a terrorist attack from a dead rival. This gets him in the good books with media mogul McGovern (York), who offers him a dream job with his major network. Too bad he’s a pawn in a much larger game involving a frame-up, fake anarchists, and a hostile takeover. Be careful what you wish for.

Hank’s most prominent adversaries are two motorcyclists who eliminate loose ends. One of the “hitmen” is revealed to be female early on. The second doesn’t show their face until much later, but sadly – from a villainess perspective – is a male. Hank’s informant (the titular Crusader) uses a voice disguiser, but don’t get excited. It’s just the same guy playing both sides.

Leila gets several merciless kills in the opening attack, plays the femme fatale, and pursues Hank through a dark room with a silenced weapon. Her contributions get worse as the movie goes on, and what should be a tense stadium encounter is ruined by cutaway shots to prerecorded sports action. Whenever important side characters die, it’s the male assassin who does it. Leila is seen only briefly. Often she taunts Hank and shows a nasty streak, but more action would have been preferable.

For the finale, it’s the male again who gets the most screen time. Earlier in the movie, we’d been shown a malfunctioning camera crane. So it’s no surprise this machine is used to defeat Leila after an all-too brief catfight with the heroine. Familiar stuff, and another villainess who deserved a better send-off.