Recon 2022: The Mezzo Incident is an indescribable disaster. Which on this site, is a blessing, but sometimes films just go too far, or not far enough, and pass by the quaint little village of Entertaining, and travel on down the road to the urban renewal failure called Rape of the Orbital Sockets.

Now before I begin, let's break this pile of ass candy down. Recon 2022: The Mezzo Incident which seems to be the middle feature of a trilogy... yes it is apparently a piece of shit, literally book-ended by two other pieces of shit... or maybe I'm wrong, and I saw the weakest link in the chain? Probably not. I digress. Now, I'm assuming the catchy title refers to the year in which our plucky band of Recon soldiers has their 'incident'... in this case the aforementioned Mezzo. So the year is 2022. We are living in the year 2009. According to this film, in the next 13 years, we are going to make some spectacular advances in science, military hardware, and inter-planetary travel. I will cut the film makers some slack since they made this feature in 2007... those extra two years make everything seem way more plausible. Of course, Recon 2022: The Mezzo Incident opens with the standard sci-fi Star Wars scrolling text sets us up for what will assuredly be an extraordinarily painful 90 minutes. The opening line is 2 decades after the Earth was destroyed (that's 20 years)... huh? Ok... so now we are to believe that this spectacular technology utilized throughout the film was actually created in the 80's? Or did we piece it together as we were floating through space following the Earth's destruction? Granted we humans do adapt well, and sometimes quickly... so maybe I'm the asshole here.

All that aside, Recon 2022: The Mezzo Incident is fantastice piece of horse shit. The actors suck, which for a time is entertaining, but the characters are all parodies of previously, and much better crafted films. All of the women, and I mean all try to do horrible Vasquez from Aliens impressions. The men... well, there's the bad ass LT... who has flashbacks (I assume from the first film, which I have absolutely no intention of viewing), there's a science officer who's accent is so bad, you can barely understand him... not that you'd want to... the horny new recruit who goes about sexually harassing all of the Vazquez's... and a few other dudes who are peppered throughout the squad just to help pad the body count.

Quick rundown of the story (cuz there really isn't one)... Troops hang out at a bar, talk shit, flirt, a few pair off and bang (several gratuitous boob scenes- which was a lovely touch) and then we set off on our mission to Mezzo.... or a ski resort in Canada... your call. We watch as our heroes march endlessly through the snow, occassionally firing their weapons at strange snow creatures and a few of the enemy, till they finally reach their objective (which was definitely not making a good movie). The enemies' (I keep saying enemies' because there were several different kinds of aliens, and cyborgs, so it was difficult to keep up) fortress was clearly the basement of a water treatment plant that allowed the filmmakers to rent out for the day... but it worked... nothing screams evil like raw sewage being processed into potable water. The firefights between the Recon team and cyborgs are fantastic. I'm fucking with you they are terrible. Most of these skirmishes occur in narrow hallways with the combatants several feet apart... yet they fire round after round and never hit a thing. Finally the Recon team plants it's explosive charges, defeat the big boss, and run out of long tunnel before the giant explosion (you know the slo-mo run where everyone jumps at the last second... yeah that one). Unfortunately only 3 of our team survives the Mezzo Incident. I say unfortunately, because 3 of them survived and there will be a sequel. How do I know? The movie stops mid frame and the title for the third feature appears on the screen encouraging you to go back for more!

The special effects are video game quality at best (which isn't really bad for a sci-fi epic... really), the costumes look like they went to a Starship Troopers garage sale, and the makeup effects can probably be purchased at your local 99¢ store. All of that lends to a steaming pile of corn-filled... you got it.

I'm actually amazed that someone agreed to fund three of these movies. But if it wasn't for individuals like that... we wouldn't have Bad Movie Knights... which frankly would be a blessing. Perhaps one day I will be able to push my keyboard aside and enjoy every film I view.... perhaps in the year 2022?

Hamlin Grade: 2


Timothy Dalton is the one true James Bond,
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