CROSS (2011), CROSS WARS (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

The only point of interest about these two hack productions is how much they look like they were shot back-to-back on the same miniscule budget. But IMDB testifies that six years elapsed before the second one was released in whatever its original venue, be it the fading video stories or on the streaming platforms that had begun to coalesce following the 2007 ascension of Netflix. Still, I hadn't noticed either of these two films (or their reputed sequels) in all the years I've been watching various services. So I suspect these cinematic turds were bundled into some sort of package bought by one such service, and that they haven't really been in circulation until recently.

The format of the CROSS series is a little like G.I. JOE crossed with SUPERNATURAL. In contrast to many other low-budget action-movies, there's no attempt to make the proceedings look like they're taking place in populated cities. A gang of good vigilantes contends with various magical threats on city-sets occupied by no other passers-by, and with nothing to disguise the fact that everything's happening on sets.

The series is named for a cross-like talisman worn by the main hero Callen (Brian Austin Green, whom I suspect no one ever thought of an action star). The talisman gives Callen some vague super-powers, though the rest of his merry band all depend on mundane ordnance. (I think in the second one there's a girl who has an amulet who can stop time.) All of the vigilantes have goofy code-names (that's the G.I. JOE part) like Riot, Backfire and Shark, except for the female fighter "Lucia." Most of the group's enemies also sport names like Saw and Slag, though the two of the main antagonists have more or less regular names like Gunnar (Vinnie Jones) and Erlik (Michael Clarke Duncan) and the third Big Bad is called Muerte (Danny Trejo). The actors spend most of their time trading insults and making bad jokes and executing very limited action-scenes with one another.

I suppose one small piece of evidence that the two turds weren't shot together is that the first Backfire is played by Jake Busey, while the second is a Black actor, which somehow precipitates a name-change to "Blackfire." CROSS WARS also introduces a second group of good vigilantes, an all-female one, but they're even less interesting than the first one. Of all the bad jokes reeled out to pad out the running time, there was one slightly funny one, but I can't recommend anyone sit through these time-wasters just for that one small gem. Oh, and there a lot of comics-based visual tropes thrown in, like having characters utter dialogue in balloons, but that element is just as witless as everything else.