MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE
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| Rated R
| | Copyright 1986 De Laurentiis
| | Reviewed by Adam Eshack
on 'a long time ago' |
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- Billy - Played by Emilio Estevez; this came out in the same year when he later wrote, directed, and starred in "Wisdom," which was about as huge a hit as this one; here he plays the hero; an employee at the Dixie Boy Truck Stop; spends a lot of the movie flirting with Brett and has an embarrassing make-out scene with her.
- Brett - Slutty, but cute girl; hitchhiking with the Bible Salesman; ends up in the Dixie Boy Truck Stop where she falls for Billy.
- Curt and Connie - The most annoying newlywed couple ever; Connie is played by Yeardley Smith, the voice of "Lisa" on "The Simpsons;" sadly, the two aren't offed in the film.
- Hendershot - He's the guy who plays the commissioner in the "Batman" films; real prick; owns the Dixie Boy Truck Stop; shot up by a military vehicle with a machine gun attached to it.
- Wanda - Bitchy waitress; blown away by the military vehicle.
- Joe - Half-witted mechanic at Dixie Boy Truck Stop; blown away by military vehicle.
- Duncan - Mechanic at the Dixie Boy Truck Stop; father of Deke; splattered by gas; crushed by a truck.
- Deke - Duncan's son; gets revenge for his dads death by putting some bullets in a drive-thru operating machine.
- Bible Salesman - Goofball, horny religious freak who's trying to sell some bibles and takes hitchhiker Brett along with him who he often feels up; we never find out if he lives or dies.
- Game Room Raider - played by Giancarlo Esposito, an actor who'd later make it big in parts in "The Usual Suspects," "Nothing To Lose," and the TV show "Homicide;" some homeboy in the Dixie Boy game room, stealing all the change from arcade machines and the coffee/cigarettes in the vendors; electrocuted by an arcade machine.
- Happy Toyz Truck - Lead evil truck that has a big, green joker face on the front; blown up by Billy.
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Stephen King had big problems with filmmakers, who'd often "ruin" his great books/stories with all the terrible adaptations of his short stories and books coming out, so what does he do? Writes and directs his own, which got hailed as King's worst film ever, though I think "Graveyard Shift" and "Mangler" were the worst ones. I really enjoyed this one however. It's a real stinker if you are expecting good horror and a decent film, but otherwise, if you're looking for a fun, ridiculous, campy b-movie to watch with the friends to crack up at, you're sure to enjoy this one.
The plot revolves around a comet that flies around earth and causes all the electrical devices to go haywire. From trucks, soda can machines, lawnmowers, sprinklers; the devices have been wiping everyone out, leaving most of the electrical devices ruling the world. It focuses in a small town with a bunch of idiots, Wilmington, over at the Dixie Boy Truck Stop, where a group of goofballs try to make it alive by dawn before they are wiped out by the vehicles and different mechanical devices.
There are a few problems with the movie; the pace doesn't move fast and the film runs out of steam in the last half hour, but otherwise, this is a great b-movie that provides a 98 minute laughfest. Make sure though that you avoid the TV version "Trucks," a pretty lousy version. |
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| Things I Learned From This Movie: | |
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- All the people in Wilmington, North Carolina are annoying, blabber mouth idiots.
- Stephen King, the man himself, can make bad adaptations as well.
- Never give the finger to comet-powered vehicles.
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- 1 min - Does the earth look a little misshaped to you?
- 1 min - Here's a hilarious cameo with the man himself, Stephen King.
- 4 mins - Here's the great drawbridge sequence. Notice the young, athletic couple; the girlfriend wearing the headband is none other than Marla Maples Trump, making her star-making screen debut.
- 14 mins - Here's the painful soda can attack scene.
- 15 mins - OUCH, kid crushed by the steamroller.
- 19 mins - Oh no, here's the whining Curt and Connie.
- 22 mins - Don't you think Curt and Connie's car would've turned on them from the comet?
- 23 mins - What happened to the black marks that were on Curtis' right cheek when he fled from the vehicle attack?
- 30 mins - If you slo-mo Duncan's gruesome encounter with the truck, notice that Duncan is actually a dummy being held on some sort of stick device to hold still. Also notice how huge Duncan's head looks before it explodes and that the "feet" have been knocked off, but in the next shot you see him dead, he's just covered in some blood and he's in one piece.
- 40 mins - How'd the truck explode all of a sudden before even hitting the ground?
- 47 mins - Is it really necessary for us to have to listen to Joe taking a dump?
- 51 mins - Here's the ridiculously silly gratuitous make-out scene.
- 54 mins - This is the classic Wanda goes berserk scene.
- 73 mins - They killed Wanda, finally!
- 93 mins - Heres Emilio, trying his best impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- 94 mins - Geez, do we really need to hear Connie whining more?
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- Stephen King at an ATM: "Honey, come on over here, sugarbuns. This machine just called me an a**hole!"
- Wanda: "Well, this thing was working fine just a few minutes ago, and now I can't get peep turkey off this thing!"
- Wanda: "We made youuuuuu!"
- Connie: "Honey, you're bleeding like a stuck pig!"
- Bible Salesman: "Get me out of this pit, or else Jesus will kill you!"
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| | Audio clips in wav format | SOUNDS | Starving actors speak out | |
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| File | Dialog |  | maximumover1.wav
| ATM: **Beep**
Stephen King: "Honey, come on over here sugarbuns. This machine just called me an a**hole!"
ATM: **Beep** **Beep** **Beep**
| | maximumover2.wav
| Connie: "Look oooouuuutttt!"
Truck Wheels: **SCREEECCCHHH***
Connie: **SCREEECCCHHH!***
Curtis: "I think I just loaded my pants."
Connie: "Curt? Curtis! It's coming after us!"
| | maximumover3.wav
| Billy: "No reason why we can't just scoot right across. Pick up your feet and try not to shuffle."
Curtis: "I can handle it."
Hendershot: "You boys are just as crazy as a couple of rats in a plugged up s**thouse!"
Billy: "And you sir are, without a doubt, one of the biggest f**kheads I've ever met in my life."
| | maximumover4.wav
| Billy: "Now, when I say run. You run, okay?"
Concerned Citizen: "What you gonna do?"
Billy: "Don't worry about it. You just run, okay."
Concerned Citizen: "What you gonna do, huh?"
Grenade: **Tink**
Billy: "Run!"
M274 Machinegun: **Chatter** **BOOM**
Brett: "I ain't never seen a hero with his a** in the air like that."
| | Theme Song | Listen to a clip from the soundtrack. | |
| | Click for a larger image | IMAGES | Scenes from the movie | |
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| | Watch a scene | VIDEO | MPEG video files | |
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| | Leave a comment | EXTRAS | Buy the movie | |
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