Monolith

This flick is barely worth reviewing.  It barely exists.  Out of respect for Bill Paxton (a.k.a. probably God), I will soldier on.  Woah, is Bad Religion subliminally fingering my mental anus?  I'm listening to "All Good Soldiers" off of Recipe for Hate and it may have prickled my subconscious, my immaterial marrow into typing "soldier."  Neat!  Anyway, 1993's Monolith is a mediocre sci-fi/action glob that more than likely went straight to videocassette faster than the speed of love.  Paxton plays Tucker, a rugged cop with a penchant for bending rules.  Wait, don't cringe yet.  Louis Gossett Jr. plays Mac, the boss of the precinct.  At one point, he actually says that the mayor is riding his tail.

The "buddy cop" cliches are FIERCE with this bitch.  Who is the buddy?  Lindsay Frost plays Flynn, a cute, yet attitudinal bluecoat.  Quality actors, but Christ in a bumper car, the dialogue is grueling.  None of it sounds natural, mainly because the screenplay forces Tucker and Flynn to butt heads without a good reason.  Oh, I didn't mention the sci-fi elements.  A vague, forgettable alien entity is in the possession of the government.  Obviously, it escapes.  How?  I'm glad you asked.  It jumps from host to host a la The Hidden and a googolplex of other genre films made after 1993.  To be fair, the premise of Monolith wasn't quite as generic as it is in the modern day.

If we got to see a gooey, malformed creature, that would be one thing.  But of course, we don't.  The only special effects in Monolith are streaks of "alien light."  As for gore, half of a man's face is mangled.  Eh.  Profanity is the most R-rated event that happens here, unless you count how violated I felt after the end credits rolled.  Can a copy of this movie be used as a rape kit?  I mean, it's all the evidence I would need to put director John Eyres away for life (and then let out after a couple months for good behavior).  The cinematography is plenty polished.  Everything seems professional, but again, if the script were any dumber, it would have to be watered twice a week.

I'm being careful not to berate Bill Paxton.  He's kewl, and hey, a job is a job.  That's the fuck of it.  The plot holes!  Tell me, how do you shoot down a helicopter with a single bullet from a rifle?  And what the hell does the government want with this alien?  Matters of espionage, I would presume, but the viewer learns next to nothing about our extraterrestrial menace.  CORRECTION: We learn nothing.  Thankfully, the pace is switched to the "chop-chop" setting, so Monolith speeds by without causing a disturbance.  It will leave my mind entirely as soon as I punctuate this sentence.  Also available on laserdisc.