Army of One (2020) Flawed but oddly enjoyable (sometimes)

Today we have a very generic and unoriginal action flick. It's a 2020 low budget independent movie that popped up on my Netflix feed and I decided to give it a watch. It was kind of a mixed bag but I will take what I can get. 

The plot is about a female soldier, named Brenner Baker, traveling with her husband on a trip. She gets attacked by a group of criminals who take orders from an old lady back at their compound. Anyway, Brenner's man is murdered and she is left for dead, of course, she comes back big time and kills her attackers one by one. 

A classic tale of revenge that doesn't really go anywhere interesting. Every single scene feels forced, the acting is flat and the effects are mostly shoddy, even with awful cgi blood. This movie feels like a bunch of arbitrary plot beats haphazardly strung together. For real, everything happens so mechanically, it seems as if a robot wrote this movie but forgot to inject any kind of emotional resonance into the script.

I will say, the actual scenes with our action girls are quite effective, the main lady is a decent actor and has the physical skills to pull off her action sequences quite well. She's tough and sells her image of a rough soldier that can kill a whole squad by herself. She is an "Army of one" after all, at least that is what the title says. 

It's not one I would recommend to most people because it is a cheap and dull movie with some small highlights, mostly out of the strong female characters presented in the movie, but the fact that it skips the meat of the story just to get to familiar territory and action sequences might repel some casual viewers. I could take it because I enjoy these trashy efforts and I like it when they know what they are doing, so I appreciated the fact that it didn't mess around, to a point at least.

Zula from Conan the Destroyer (1984)

Out of all the female warriors in fantasy media, maybe Zula is one of the least talked about, almost always overshadowed by the likes of Red Sonja or Xena. However, this secondary character played by the lovely Grace Jones is memorable and enjoyable to watch.

The character originated in the seventies Conan the Barbarian comics and was originally male, but when brought to the screen in 1984 a black woman was cast on the role and the sorcery elements of the character were taken away, going for a raging female tribe woman instead.  

Zula is encountered about 20 minutes into the picture and is seen fighting a group of men who captured and chained her. She is shown to be a feisty thief who has no fear in facing multitudes of enemies. The teenage princess Conan is escorting orders him to set her free and he does. 

Soon after, Zula follows the group and battles one of the bodyguards, after defeating him, she becomes one of Conan's companions out of respect and gratitude. From then on, she accompanies them on their journey, engaging in battle against hordes of enemies and creatures.  

Being the last of her tribe, Zula soon found a new community she could belong to in her new group of partners. During the climax of the film, she wounds the final beast and the princess makes her the captain of the palace's guards, putting a purpose and direction to her aggressiveness and strength. 

This was a surprisingly fun movie and it had some nice feminist undertones regarding Zula, despite some other elements not aging very well. Either way, I am gonna leave you with the classic "Attract a man" scene, that conveys the character's savage attractiveness in her primitive animalistic attitude. 

See it HERE.

Lady Terminator (1989) Rip-off with a great villainess and high on deranged action

I have a really fun one for you today. Let's talk about the deranged Indonesian Terminator rip-off known as Lady Terminator from 1989. It's kind of a low budget foreign version of the original movie but with an unstoppable stoic female killer instead of a huge android and instead of a science fiction concept we have some esoteric black magic as part of the plot. 

The story revolves around an anthropologist, Tania, who goes to Indonesia in order to find a book, she's investigating an ancient sex goddess known as The Queen of the South Sea. While an old man warns her about the dangers of such relics and the consequences of handling them, she doesn't listen. Tania is soon possessed by the spirit of the goddess and searches for the descendant of the man who defeated her a long time ago.

The evil goddess doing her thing.

Pre-possesion Tania.

This unleashes lot's of shootouts and violent gory murders on her part. Always chasing after her prey with unrelenting conviction and a cold expression on her face. 

The rest is the stuff action girls were made for, the shootout sequences are plentiful, high on energy, entertaining and brutal. Most seem to be taken from The Terminator, such as the club shooting and the one in the police station but oddly enough it stands on its own against the original, just with an even lower budget.  

Regarding the theme of the blog, I would have been more satisfied if there was some kind of female hero that could balance things out but the hero in this is actually some generic white guy that saves the girl in danger. He was possibly added for market value and to get a wider audience. The "Sarah Connor'' Indonesian girl isn't a bad character but much like Sarah she doesn't get to do much, other than stand around and get saved by the male lead, at least until the end, but this girl never gets to become an action girl like Sarah did in her second entry. The guy and the damsel in distress have a really soapy and pathetic love sequence that's just there to rip off the original. 

Just look at the villainess in this bizarre flick, that long curly hair and badass leather outfit really give you the 80's action vibes that you want to get. Also, things get very sexual quite frequently in this picture, heck, the first scene is a sex scene that introduces the powers of the goddess and what she does with men, which is kind of nasty, you have to see it. Anyway, once things get going as a proper Terminator knock off Tania is seen kicking ass frequently and in very solidly choreographed action. I think most action movie fans will enjoy it very much.