ABRAXAS, GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE is a completely cheesy B-movie version of THE TERMINATOR, made with a tongue so far in cheek that it's at risk of being swallowed. It's poorly shot and stupidly made on a tiny budget, shot in darkness for the most part to hide the paucity of it all. A cameo from James Belushi is about as mainstream as it gets. Don't expect much in the way of action or effects as the budget doesn't really stretch that far. Man-mountain Sven-Ole Thorsen does his best Schwarzenegger impression as a renegade alien who arrives on Earth and impregnates a woman, setting a path of destruction in order. He's the least imposing bad guy ever. Jesse Ventura, complete with awful bald hair cut, is the ultra-wooden hero. It's really not worth your time.

James Cameron's TERMINATOR is a classic, but you know what it's missing? Jesse Ventura. At least, that's what it appears writer/director/producer Damian Lee believed. Six years after Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 arrived from the future to murder Sarah Connor and prevent the birth of her future son, Jesse Ventura's Abraxas was dropped on Earth to…protect the co-mater and prevent…something. Right, well it's not thought out so well but it's surprisingly fun for that exact same reason. Abraxas is a Finder, some sort of intergalactic space cop, and he's assigned to hunt his former partner gone rogue, Secundus (Sven-Ole Thorsen). Secundus is on the hunt for the Anti- Life Equation, a vague MacGuffin that is supposed to give him godlike powers, and the only way to obtain it is impregnating a woman to birth a child (the "co- mater") and then scanning it out of the child's head. I guess. Secundus arrives at Earth and impregnates the unfortunate Sonia Murray (Marjorie Bransfield) before Abraxas arrives on the scene to capture him. With Secundus in custody, Abraxas ignores orders to eliminate Sonia and her freshly born child. And, seeing as how the organization behind the Finders has an arbitrary rule that Finders are never to be executed, Secundus escapes his imprisonment five years later to return to Earth and finish what he started. Now Abraxas must…once again…return to Earth to stop Secundus from retrieving the Anti-Life Equation and using it to…do whatever it is he plans to do with it. Be extra powerful, I guess.ABRAXAS, GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE is hilariously bad. Jesse Ventura doesn't strike me as leading man material, especially in a role where he plays some sort of cybernetic space hunter with cheesy sci-fi dialogue he opts to deliver in wooden fashion. But it's all part of the fun. Abraxas has been a Finder for something like 10,000 years. As Finders, he and Secundus have computers embedded in their forearms called "answerboxes" which seem to act as personal computers and communication devices to keep in touch with home base. Home base in this case is a broom closet with cheap sci-fi computer set dressing from which Abraxas can receive orders from his superiors, Hite and Dar (Dar being played by none other than writer/director/producer Lee). The writing in this movie is delightfully lame, often coming off as something stolen from a high school freshman's creative writing class. Actually, that's a pretty apt description: ABRAXAS is poorly- written TERMINATOR fan fiction. There's so much to love here. Abraxas's absolute inability to interact with normal humans in any way that doesn't come across as awkward and his attempt at blending in with locals using a gym T- shirt, blue jeans, and a trenchcoat. His hidden rat-tail that makes its debut halfway through the film. His very, very, very uncomfortable scene where he's sitting shirtless in bed and invites little Tommy (the "co-mater") to join him as he recounts a heartbreaking tale of two men who were once partners. And that's just our main star.I love Sven-Ole Thorsen in this movie. I guess Thorsen is a big friend of Schwarzenegger who's appeared in bit roles in a bunch of his films, but ABRAXAS gives Thorsen a chance to shine. He's a blast to watch. He combines Schwarzenegger's stoic muscular presence with the occasional outburst of wide-eyed scene-chewing. Secundus is a mental case on a mission in which he'll stop at nothing to acquire the co-mater. Except for breakfast. He'll stop for breakfast, as he does in a bizarre scene where he confounds waitresses by eating the entire breakfast menu (including the bill). No reason for this scene aside from some oddly-timed comic relief, of which the film has plenty. There's even a scene where Jim Belushi makes a cameo appearance as the principal of Tommy's school who insists Sonia pull him out of school because he weirds out the other students. It's all so strange. I don't think the movie knows what it wants to be exactly and the tone is all over the place. But none of that matters because Ventura and Thorsen are just awesome. And, come on, the majority of the film is played over the tones of smooth jazz saxophone that makes the action scenes absurdly surreal. Most of everything in ABRAXAS just doesn't make sense, from the childish sci-fi elements to the filmmakers overall decisions. ABRAXAS is a wonderful mess that runs out of steam a bit in the final act but there are some great laughs to be had.

Noble alien policeman Abraxas (an earnest and likable performance by Jesse Ventura, who sports a ghastly thin ratty ponytail) arrives on Earth to apprehend evil extraterrestrial Secundus (hulking Sven-Ole Thorsen, who does a mumbly one-note impression of Big Arn throughout), who impregnates the hapless Sonia (the pretty, but extremely blah Marjorie Bransfield) with a potentially destructive mutant embryo. Flatly directed by Damian Lee (who also penned the insipid and derivative script), with a plodding pace, infrequent and ineptly staged action scenes, chintzy (far from) special effects, a meandering narrative, some heavy-handed mushy stuff between Abraxas and Sonia's mute son, mild violence, ham-fisted attempts at humor, a general air of sleep-inducing tedium, plain cinematography, mostly lame acting from an uninspired cast, and a dismal fizzler of a climactic confrontation between Abraxas and Secundus, this dreadful dud makes for a definite mind-numbing chore to endure. James Belushi briefly pops up in a nothing cameo role as a clueless grade school principal. The atrocious pulsating score sounds like it was done by a third-rate 80's hair rock band. Ventura tries hard, but he's fighting a futile uphill battle that he's destined to lose no matter how much of a battle he puts up. A real stinker.

This is the only say I have; my friends mostly don't know of this film and neither does society. My origin is Minneapolis, Minnesota (where Jesse was elected governor) so we (I think I voted his way as well) elected Jesse as governor to shake up the establishment-- but that's not what this movie is about, no sir-- it is political in that Mr. Ventura's debut on screen has more to do with the future than with his pending fate with the political arena of which he's been criticized, praised, laughed at and extolled-- independent? maybe in 200 years !!! ahem, which state will allow the politics of ABRAXAS? And so the politics are there but so far removed from this century... Anyhow, this is not about politics. It's about living and love and aliens and saving grace and keeping our race alive, underneath its cheesy, clichéd and under-budgeted tactics. This film is quite conservative at its core; a few scenes make me want to speak out and say wow-- yes even a quick comment on this B-grade (actually would receive an perfunctory F -- meaning cursory? as the trap the best of the erudite often fall into -- in cinema repertoire as looked at by the academy and its ilk, but hey i'm not blue blood not ivy league not prone to programming the masses in a particular way so as to curb their affection and/or interest...) movie is relevant in that we are facing this type of transformation in society at large-- art imitates life, at least here-- and Jesse does a commendable job of saying what not too many of us can even express, let alone volunteer and get paid very little to exemplify. What planet is Jesse from? Hell, it's a coin-toss, the answer lies in the state of the union address, the statue of liberty and the eye of the hurricane... I am just grooving on this near-futile attempt to educate the ones who might not otherwise have the opportunity to learn-- like me. We are all deficient, we are all brilliant, we are all here to help bring about the everlasting luminescence on this planet before it's too late... Anyone care to: rewrite what was lost in translation and production? BEDLAM BLISS IS AS FRIENDLY AS IT'S GALANT & MUTABLE. God bless.