Plot: The mob and the government race to be the first to recover a stolen alien artifact with unparalleled powers.
Tubi will always be my favourite streaming service as it occasionally reminds us of movies we forgot existed. Final Equinox is one such movie and stars the late, great Joe Lara, Martin Kove and David Warner.
This isn’t a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, in fact, it’s pretty terrible and yet I still enjoy it simply because I love trashy movies. David Warner also made any film better simply by being there and I always thought he would have been a great Alfred in a potential Batman movie.
Joe Lara plays our lead, Lugar who is tasked to recover a mysterious object that could change the world. It has fallen into this hands of his old nemesis Torman (Martin Kove), so it’s up to Lugar to stop him.
Any movie where Kove is playing a villain is worth watching as he is at his cigar twirling best here; you’ll know what I mean if you watch it. Joe Lara’s character Lugar isn’t particularly likeable or sympathetic; in fact he’s a grumpy bugger who is an addict and just plain rude to everyone. As the story progresses he loses some of his bitterness to become the hero for the (very silly) finale. As this is from 1995 it uses very early CGI for the climax and it looks really unconvincing and doesn’t hold up at all.
I have to be honest, that at various points throughout the movie I had no idea what was going on or what anyone was talking about. I was just there for the fight scenes and regular, unnecessary (but not unpleasant) soft-core sex scenes. During one point two characters are having sex and I actually didn’t know who it was. It was so darkly lit that you couldn’t see who the characters were, so I had to replay it several times just to be sure. FYI I still don’t know who it was, so I’d better watch it again later.
I did like some of the music at the beginning and end of the movie as it was a little Enigma-esque.
There are a few fight scenes and shoot-outs with maybe the shittest helicopter ever created; it’s well enough paced at around 90 minutes and doesn’t go long between action scenes.
Overall, Final Equinox has several fight scenes and some gratuitous nudity, but that really doesn’t make it a great movie… or does it? I still have fun with it because it’s so trashy and Martin Kove is an enjoyable villain, but there are plenty of better ways to waste 90 minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up on Rifftrax one of these days if it isn’t already…