I'm going to kill you and I'm going to like it.

Bruce Willis should call out the lawyers. Assault on Dome 4 can best be described as Die Hard in Space... if John McClaine was a wimpy space-guy and Alan Rickman's Hans was a winking, catchphrase-creating cult star. It so blatantly rips off Die Hard at points, that I really wonder where the creators got the balls to even produce the movie. You got your hero trying to visit his wife (check), his wife being held hostage (check), the hero in the same building as the bad guy, but the bad guy doesn't know it (check), the hero calling an outsider to keep them informed (check).

I love Bruce Campbell. Here's what he has to say about the film on his official Web site, www.bruce-campbell.com: This is Die Hard without a budget. As Alex Windham, an intergalactic criminal, I take a mining colony hostage in outer space and threaten to blow up the Earth. I say threaten, because we couldn't afford to really do it...

Yes, here Bruce Campbell goes bad. Bruce is great no matter what he does, so you won't ever read here that he's had a bad performance (others in that exclusive club include Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly and Bobby D. They may be in bad movies [especially Analyze That for Bob] but they're always good.

So here's the movie as I understand it. It's not really a review:

Bruce is in shackles, spits something at the warden and then the warden blows up into tiny pieces. Of course, all the rest of the guards are knocked out while Bruce remains free and unharmed. That's because he knew the huge concussive blast was coming and he ducked under it or shut his eyes real tight to deflect the blow.

Double Dragon!

Then Bruce commits the biggest crime of all. He releases a fellow prisoner. I forget his name, but I can't forget his face. His criminal friend apparently used all his prison cigarettes to buy shampoo, because he has a long, flowing mane that can only be described as a semi-mullet. Look at the picture. You'll see what I mean. Methinks he escaped from the frames of Double Dragon or Mortal Kombat.

The two criminal friends then both go and meet with their other criminal friends and lovers, apparently circa 1973, straight from Studio 54. They're going to take over the world or something. Little do they know that Chase Moran is going to stop them. Chase Moran. No joke: my 11th grade English teacher (and if I may say inspiration for the career path I am now on) one, Sean "Seamus" McCarthy, called himself Jocko Moran. Like it was some kind of nickname or something. A stage name. Chase Moran must be his thematic brother.

It seems that Chase just wanted to go home to see his wife...his hot, soap opera actress wife. But she got taken hostage. Then the end. Really. That's all I caught. Bruce's long haired buddy dies at some point and then there's a standoff between Bruce and Chase. Chase throws a knife at Bruce who was going to blow up the earth with a small, car alarm-like device. Whatever.

I usually love this kinds of movies, but this one in particular brought back too many bad memories. I've written about my experience before on an independent movie set: In essay form, in short story form, in weblog form to some extent. This brought all the painful memories back. From the dark because we don't have any money for production design sets...to the actor guy who just isn't handsome enough to get regular TV work thing. It all hit too close to home. By "unhandsome actor" I refer, of course, to the man who plays Moran, not Bruce who takes the best goddamn 8x10 glossies in the business.

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