amazing trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrOEL_rV8N4
Here's a blaxploitation offering you may not have heard of. Why? well because it is not exactly a blaxploitation movie per say, certainly not what the cover would indicate. The description tells of a black power guy who gets injected with a serum that makes him like Superman. This kind of happens, but it happens in the last 15 minutes!
I liked this movie. It's a PG rated but edgy, very heavy handed polemenic on race. While the acting isn't very good the actual filmaking is pretty solid. Its strongest suit though is its uncompromised black power nationalism and unfair but hilarious stereotypes of whites, black politicians and bankers. There are no token nice crackers or conflicted Uncle toms, all the rich people are evil and the poor ghetto people are saintly. The main characters are seen mainly as deluded for trying to integrate into white society.
The Kincades are an upworldy mobile black family. The husband is a succesful doctor who is working on some groundbreaking forumula for heart disease and chooses this certain neighborhood for it's proximity to the hospital. The whites in the neighborhood are not having it for one second. There's lots of ridiculous blaxploitation moments with white people yelling the n word at little black kids, trying to blow up the Kincades house, killing their pets, etc.
These are all escalations from the PROTEST that occurs when the Kincades move in. People walk in a circle outside their house holding signs that say "go back to the black ghetto". Did this actually happen anywhere? "We fought the Indians for this land, they didnt" one says to another. I wonder what would Malcolm X say to that?
The final section of the flim is where the black superman emerges and it's pretty awesome in a ridiculous way. and then there is a absurd minor twist at the end that I just loved. If you can handle radical politics, bad acting, a lack of sex/ street walker disco type babes and very misleading advertising definately check this one out. I enjoyed it.
4/5
I haven't watched this is a while, but do remember how forced and unnatural some of the racist scenes are. You see part of it in the trailer when a crowd of well-dressed white people are pelting the family's house with trash and stones. Then, if memory serves, Abar and his friends all show up. The crowd falls back, and the good guys clean up the front yard.
What made it anything besides a forgettable attempt is when Abar gains his super powers. He can't fly (though I think he is invulnerable), he can't lift cars, but he can change things with his mind. Usually he does this in the most jarring manner possible. Isn't there a part where he looks at some young people playing craps on the sidewalk, does the super Abar stare, and turns them all into college students?
Something I'd like to mention is that the Abar on the poster art is much cooler than the Abar in the movie:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61iTOIN-VtL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
yeah the powers are completely absurd and would require a total suspension of all rationality. too bad it happens in the last 15 minutes.
This has been on my "need to see" list ever since I read the PSYCHOTRONIC write-up about it. Is the DVD fullscreen or widescreen? I think I read it was fullscreen, which made me hesitate to buy it.