Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)
I have yet to find anyone who can explain to me the advantage of the ArriFlex 3D process, the innovation that brings to life such cinematic ‘masterworks’ as Friday the 13th Part III, Spacehunter and Jaws 3D. From what I understand it is all just as cruddy and dark and badly proportioned as any 3D movies released in the 1950s. You could, I figured, easily compare Jaws 3D and Spacehunter to, say, the 1953 Three Stooges short “Spooks” in which the audience was treated to Moe’s fingers poking you right in the eye. Top to bottom, the quality remains the same.
As I have stated before, all 3D of this era is meaningless to me. I have myopia in my right eye that is so severe as to render it useless. That means that the cardboard glasses with the red and blue lenses result in seeing the entire movie with a filter of red. Fortunately, I was able to see Metalstorm: the Destruction of Jared Syn without the distraction of the 3D process. UN-fortunately, when it was over, I kind of wished I had been able to sit through it with blinders on.
This movie sucks in whatever dimension it proclaims. It is yet another Star Wars rip-off but this one might go down in history as redefining the term “pacing problems.” This movie is so slow that it threatens to start going backwards. That would mean that the movie would eventually start over and that would be Hell on Earth – in 3D!
The story is right off the shelf: in a god-forsaken landscape sometime, I think, in the future, there’s a Ranger named Dogan who rescues a princess named Dhyana after her father is killed by the evil and curiously named Jared-Synn. In order to avenge her father’s murder, Dogen must locate Jared-Syn’s command post located somewhere in the Lost City. This means (of course) a journey that is fraught with one ridiculous looking creature after another, most annoyingly Cyclopeans who look like punk rockers whose faces look like biscuits that didn’t rise.
You know the rest. The climax is kind of inevitable. Hell, the MOVIE is inevitable. And since I saw the movie in 2D, I can say that my interest was focused on trying to figure out where the 3D scenes were supposed to be, however I got the sense that this movie was never intended to be in 3D. It was a 2D movie with the 3D grafted on top of it. But, you know, whether it is in two-dimension, three-dimension or an alternate-dimension the movie is still terrible.