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The Hidden is one of those movies whose presence on my queue I can't really account for. Seriously, I have no clue what to expect on this one. We're starting off with... grainy bank camera footage, with big nasty bright green credits. Suddenly, someone pulls out a shotgun, blasts a bunch of stuff, and then makes that real smart move of getting in close and smiling at the camera before shooting it out. Heading outside, we see it was a Wells Fargo Bank, which is an odd sort of product placement, and our shooter gets in a snazzy car and speeds off. There's a bunch of people in neon pink clothes and awesome music on the radio, eliminating any doubt you may have had that this was an 80's movie. If you were playing attention though, you may have picked up on that because it's a movie which started off with someone just going nuts with a shotgun in a bank, or even earlier, from the bright green credits on grainy black and white footage. Anyway this is REALLY reminding me of playing GTA at this point. End up shooting someone when picking up money, hopping in your groovy black sports car, listening to some righteous 80's music, and making an active point of driving through parks, on sidewalks, under foot bridges, and specifically aiming for things that look like they might be kinda fun to drive through. Even the happy go lucky expression he has while doing so is pretty fitting for one of those times you're clearly not planning to save it when you're done... and yup, there's plowing straight through a police barricade, ignoring how much you're getting shot up, getting out of the car JUST before it explodes, but being a bit too close still and getting sent flying from the blast, tada, cut to hospital. That's about the point I reload. Of course, the tutorial explanation of how hospitals work isn't popping up, so I guess this guy just doesn't care about losing cash and weapons and seeing that Times Hospitalized stat tick up.
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So yeah. Here's the cops in their police station full of pastel colors and weird camera angles talking about GTA guy, and here's the new detective being assigned to the case. Oh hey! Say hello to Officer Mua'dib! Man. Isn't it cheating to work as a detective after you've ODed on the Water of Life? How long can this movie possibly be at this point? Distracting myself by checking IMDB to make sure that this movie was made after Dune and before Twin Peaks (yup), I see that huh, he was also the voice of Donald Love in GTA3. Connections! Anyway, this is probably more important. GTA guy comes out of his coma, walks over to the other comatose guy in his hospital room, and... spits a surprisingly huge squid down his throat. It takes a while honestly. I mean, as mouth squids go? It's like a meter long. So yeah. That's our plot apparently. FBI Agent Paul Atreides is on the trail of a big ol' space squid that's bent on playing Vice City FOR REAL... except in L.A. Seriously, this is apparently just some crazy hedonistic squid going on a super-80's tastic happy violent rampage. I'm highly open to the possibility that Mua'dib is also secretly harboring a space squid, which is a bounty hunter looking for GTA Squid, because we haven't really had any scenes of him being baffled and sputtering so far. He's pretty much going for the hardened tough guy attitude despite really not looking the part, so, honestly, I'd be surprised if I'm wrong there.
OK yeah, Mua'dib totally knows he's hunting a space squid. He's either an alien bounty hunter, or he's frelling Mulder. He's getting partnered with a regular ol' L.A. cop which... I don't think is how the FBI actually works, but I guess it's how the space squid FBI works. And yeah, he openly admits that he just up and stole the groovy car he's in. And back to GTA Squid, OK, I really like this guy. Currently he's possessing some grumpy old guy, and he just kinda barged into a record store, killed the owner, took all the money, his gun (80's movie, EVERYONE has a gun), and a big ol' boom box, which he just plopped down on the table of a diner blaring some Blondie song while he eats. Then he sees a really cool looking car go by, so he immediately drops everything, and goes chasing it down the street until his run meter empties. OK, seriously, someone needs to make a fan edit of this movie which just plasters the Vice City HUD over all this guy's scenes. It's too perfect. Oh, and again, like GTA, while his quarry eludes him, snazzy cars travel in packs. And here's repeatedly going through the dance of opening the door, getting accosted by someone, dancing away a couple steps, repeat, until it's time to just give up, kill the guy, and take the car. Meanwhile the car salesman (he wound up stopping by the dealership) and his prospective client are just... snorting coke in the back room while filling out the paperwork.
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OK, seriously, what ever happened to those pop-up headlights? Those were so awesome. Oh, and here's more GTA-age. attempting to stop and get hookers but it turns out they're just generic slutty looking girls. Anyway, I really love how this movie is not coming right out and saying Mua'dib is an alien, but making it SO VERY OBVIOUS anyway. Oh, I stole this car. I read minds. This guy we're after is the same guy you gunned down a while ago in a different body. His cop partner though just seems to be content with the delusion that this guy is REALLY eccentric. Meanwhile GTA squid is breaking into the house of the random guy whose car and wallet he just stole as he was buying it, and... huh. Turns out he owns a metric @#$%load of guns and stuff. Unfortunately GTA squid's current body is kinda springing leaks. Oh, and meanwhile at police HQ? Actual line: "It's a flamethrower. We just picked it up off some hobo, can you believe it?" Oh I can 80's Sci-Fi Action Movie. I can.
So yeah, lame cop guy... I'm just going to start calling him Scully, invites Mua'dib over for dinner. He awkwardly putters about watching Scully's touching family moments and generally creeping his wife and kid the @#$% out. OK back to GTA Squid. He finds a strip club. Oh. OK, back to dinner. Was that really worth taking the time to cut to for all of 5 seconds? And seriously, I LOVE this lack of subterfuge. "So, where did you grow up?" Mua'dib just kinda points up. "... up north somewhere?" Vague nod-shrug. "What town?" "Rosolhok." "... is that in the United States?" Further vague nod-shrug. Also what the hell is wrong with these people? They put their 8 year old daughter to bed before they ate dinner? Oh, and here's our VERY 80'S strip club now. It... honestly seems like some totally unbelievable spoof of such really. I mean, rather than nudity, we just have people wearing gold plasticy fringe jackets and zebra striped aerobics outfits and stuff. Oh and really really outlandish underwear made of money and fake diamonds. I think there may have been a fraction of a second of out of focus boobs in there, but I'm not sure, so I'm not counting it. Especially since we're well past the third paragraph by this point.
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Mua'dib is mystified by alka-seltzer. Meanwhile GTA squid digs gold jacket hooker... and going to pause it to check on something real quick, I accidentally stop right on an extreme closeup of GTA Squid's new hooker body's dress' ridiculous butt window. I'm going to have to try and get a screen of this later to show you what an embarrassing and weird thing this is to have sitting on your screen while someone is reading over your shoulder at work. Like that person right behind you right now. Cops arrive on the scene as she's leaving, which... really isn't surprising. Again, nobody's actions in this movie are subtle. She's about to hop right back in, despite a huge number of cops saying not to, but fortunately here's some convenient scumbags offering to show her THEIR awesome car. It's not really awesome, but scumbag and GTA squid have sex in it for a while. Hey, don't you judge GTA Squid for that! Hedonistic rampages know no gender! It is kinda weird to do the whole "Oh hey! I have boobs now!" self-groping AFTER having sex with some random punk for a while, but that also happens. Oh and she presumably murdered him between the sex having and the self-groping. Or maybe... OK yeah. "A stripper screws some guy to death," says Scully in the middle of a "this isn't making any sense" speech. Thanks for clearing that up Scully. Not sure if that's a real thing, but thanks for the handwave anyway.
Oh hi other cops! You want me to get out of this car? OK, I can do that! Look how sexy I am! Also hey, look at this awesome combat shotgun! Blam blam blam! Whee! Life is fun. GTA Squid doesn't ever actually talk, but that was still the gist there. Oh, and now it seems it's time for an actual proper car chase. It's also time for me to start wondering if I've actually seen this movie before. I know I've seen a few with the exact same plot as this movie, not sure about this one in particular. Either way, I figure odds are good that Mua'dib is going to be fatally injured before the end and Scully's going to have to make the noble sacrifice of letting him take over his body to get the job done. Anyway, car chase over, Mua'dib and Scully have a weird little conversation about whether Scully should or should not cover him, as we head in for a big showdown in a manikin factory. Thus challenging me to remember how the heck you spell manikin. Oh hey, got it on the first try. So yeah. blam blam blam, exploding shelves of manikins, GTA Squid totally shrugging off injuries, ho hum. We don't have any goons to have fall over these railings when they die, so let's just head up to the roof. Mua'dib's all, we've got to catch up before she dies. Scully's all "why don't we wait until after she's dead?" Which... you know, honestly? In context that's a pretty good question. I doubt there's going to be someone conveniently hanging out on the roof, or at least, there wouldn't be if you weren't being idiots and splitting up like this to search it.
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Scully gets kinda shot and starts dangling perilously off the roof, Mua'dib is closing all tough and cool and shooting away weapons and shooting out shoulders and vital organs. Ah, here we go. Finally time to pull out the space gun. Looks kinda like a disembodied car door handle. GTA Squid finally has an actual line. Basically it's "You won't get me that easily copper! Nya, see!" before diving off the roof. Except, you know, not nearly that cheesy. Anyway yeah, she's street pizza, but possesses a conveniently passing dog. A dog which is now very sinister. So now do we get some Awesome 80's Dog Flavored Manic Rampage? I'm guessing probably not, but let's use our imaginations! Jumping up on tables and eating pizzas. Chasing cars. Savaging mailmen. Barking along to the tune of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun... But no. Instead we have to have some boring scene about the cops realizing that hey, the FBI totally doesn't work that way, and shooting someone 30 times before throwing her off a roof is not an acceptable way for cops to conduct themselves. Well, specifically Scully has had enough of this weirdness and is arresting Mua'dib until he can get some answers. I don't really know what he's looking for though. I mean... this really can't be made clearer at this point.
Oh dear gods are we actually going to get a little doggie rampaging? Dog Squid is just sitting here staring into a mirror. Apparently it's another cop's dog, but... totally not a police dog. It's a black and white mutt sorta deal. Anyway, the owner's getting a midnight snack when suddenly our possessed dog leaps through a solid door, knocking him to the floor, and then presumably taking him over. We're cutting away though because we apparently only had the budget to show the squid transfer the one time. Maybe another towards the end. Back to the boring exposition now though. Hey Mua'dib, mind just coughing your squid up a little so you have a visual aid? "Are we talking space men here?" Scully finally asks. Mua'dib nods. I'm almost positive I actually have seen this before, at least the last few minutes anyway. This scene feels pretty familiar. "I guess a career in the police didn't really prepare you for this did it." "Yes it did." Mua'dib is locked away. So... wait. Scully STILL doesn't buy this story? It's not painfully obvious that this is what's going on now? I mean, you've seen the nigh-invulnerability, right? And the space gun? And the... conversation between GTA Squid and Mua'dib about not being ready to abandon that body yet? Are you just dense or what? I mean, you can't even act like Mua'dib's been lying about all this this whole time. Oh and here's some bumbling cop aporizing a wall playing around with the space gun. Dude that so isn't how we handle evidence guy! You don't just wander around picking things up and playing with him!
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So naturally, GTA Squid nabs the space gun, and a whole mess of other guns, and asks Scully where Mua'dib is. He's... not making any attempt to pretend to be anyone else, even says "I already shot you once." He's just taking him hostage with some huge guns. Seriously, I LOVE that this is a movie about two body-jacking space critters to whom the concept of subterfuge is totally alien. But anyway, Scully escapes when GTA Squid is hit with a ton of gunfire, so now he's finally willing to play ball, and let's Mua'dib out. Oh, and he also somehow managed to grab the space gun back. So anyway, firefight in the holding cells. Anyway, the space gun can totally blow walls up, but apparently doesn't work on possessed humans, only on bodyless squids. And walls. They talk a bit, about how possessing humans is way better than possessing Altarians for instance, then eventually a random locked up guy played by nifty character actor Danny Trejo goes "So hey, what kind of dude are you?" in just this... casually curious tone. It's kinda weird. Anyway, the whole station now seems to be pretty down with this whole concept, finally. Unfortunately, GTA Squid has grabbed a new cop, and now has sights on possessing the mayor. Because he seems like someone who's well-liked and has a lot of nice stuff and all. The quality of rampaging overall has really dropped over the course of the movie really. First body, crazy madcap joyriding. Second, blaring cool tunes. Third, being totally slutty and that's about it. Everything past there, just no fun at all. Except for a possible unfilmed dog rampage that is.
Oh and again, he's not trying to secretly possess the mayor. He's just... walking into a high security press event shooting everyone who crosses his path. Current body looks kinda like the lovechild of Q from Star Trek and the second Terminator by the way. And... huh. Scully was fatally shot? That doesn't seem right. Oh, and here's the first actual uzi in the movie, held by the mayor's bodyguard, briefly. And... possessed mayor just stuck his tongue out at Mua'dib. Not a wink, no, that'd be too subtle. He gives a nice raspberry. Mua'dib lies to Scully when he asks "Did we get him?" as he's beeing wheeled out to the ambulance... which under the circumstances is really a terrible white lie to tell. Oh and apparently it's senator, not mayor. Could have sworn they'd said mayor anywhere. "Is it true Senator you're still runnin for president?" "I wanna be President!" Actual line. So... now here' a running gun fight in the middle of a frelling press conference. Also, here's Chekhov's Flamethrower. Awesome. Mua'dib just totally immolated Senator GTA Squid in front of a crowd of like, a couple hundred people, then used his space gun to make the emerging space squid totally explode. Then we cut away, which is a shame, because I'd really love to see how the rest of that scene played out. I mean, Mua'dib was sent to the hospital to recover, so, clearly he was let go, and... OK, I guess now he's going to possess Scully so his kid doesn't have to grow up without a father? Or use some sort of 11th hour BS space magic to revive him as he flatlines? Oh. Really movie? You're going with the BS space magic? Sorry movie, that's lame. Lame I say! There has been no indication that that is a thing Mua'dib is allowed to do. You just totally did that for the sake of plot contrivance. Or does the real Mua'dib just look like gold dust instead of a big squid or something? Are you trying to be ambiguous on that point? Because I'm not buying it. You just ended with total BS space magic. Pretty good movie overall though. Well, the first half anyway. It kinda got really boring after the dog was possessed. Oh, and we have a titular end credit theme song even! A true halmark of the classy 80's violence fest that. Also, in case it wasn't clear? Aside from that one dubious second in the night club, not one scene in this movie that defies my standards of what's OK to screen grab. Also no swearing... hey how the heck did this actually manage to get an R rating in 88? Weird.
