Digital Playground, once a leading supplier of high quality Adult features including one that still pays their bills ("Pirates"), has gone through corporate shuffles and emerged with highly variable product of late. While its cast attracted my interest, "Stryker" proved to be an appalling example of the "insult the viewer" school of cinema.
What is most striking is that DP recently released a British-made spy feature "Monarch" that is terrific -combining hot sex with exciting action scenes. By contrast "Stryker" has consistently bad performances, 8 mechanical sex scenes spread over 8 half-hour-plus episodes, cheap sets, and no action at all. At times director Billy Visual(s) - even his fake name is apparently misspelled - directs like an amateur backyard moviemaker.
Obviously it is making fun of the ongoing James Bond powerhouse phenomenon, but without a clue regarding that franchise's derring-do or even humor. The cast is encouraged to posture, exaggerate and think they're being funny, leaving a viewer to merely jaw-drop at the clumsiness and groaner-jokes of scene after scene.
Chief culprit is Tommy Pistol, utterly miscast in the title role almost as if DP were trying to make the project bad on purpose -yes, there is an audience segment drawn towards intentional crap for God know's what reason. (I always suspected it was a subconscious desire to feel superior to what one's watching - the old "I could obviously do better" syndrome.)
He makes non-stop wise-cracks and thinks he's being hilarious -vintage Jerry Lewis (post-Dino) seems vastly subtler, even with fake teeth in Jerry's mouth. With slick-backed greasy hairdo, overabundance of tattoos and diminutive stature, plus Salvation Army wardrobe, he's not a satire of secret agents but reminded me instead of the look of vintage porn actor (circa 1970) Norman Fields in one of his 1- day wonders. All that's missing is Fields' porkpie hat.
But instead of interesting co-stars the likes of Suzanne Fields or Rene Bond from that halcyon soft-core morphing into hardcore era, we have current bombastic starlets, all of whom bring sexy bodies to the show but each giving perhaps her worst screen performance to date. Most awful by far are top-billed Raven Bay and Kenna James, both operatives for CRISIS, the independent spy organization run by Pistol's mom, Julia Ann. These two actresses recite their lines by rote at top- speed, as if refugees from a '40s Howard Hawks movie, except that when they swallow their words or in Kenna's case flub a line, it is left in the final print. I couldn't decide which was worse -listening to their incompetent gibberish or suffering through Pistol's well-honed untalented stand-up act.
Perhaps the only saving grace of the lengthy (over four hours including endless recaps and credit repeats) is the current flavor of the month Peta Jensen. She has probably the best body of any newcomer in the industry, and her sex scenes are hot. Also hot but in minor sex roles (as hookers or facsimiles thereof) are Eva Karera and Courtney James, like Peta bringing huge boobs to the party.
Storyline of competition between CRISIS and other idiotic spy orgs named D.I.C.K.S. and C.U.N.T.S. is minimal, with main subplot involving John Strong as a KGB head who has an off and on love affair with Julia (and who is presumed to be Pistol's daddy). Romantic rivalries between Raven and her femme teammates as well as Pistol vs. nerdy accountant Michael Vegas (sporting a Harpo Marx hairdo) predate in content the spy craze, playing like something out of a '50s movie like Gidget. Dane Cross looks physically unfit and is terrible in a stupid role that is supposed to suggest Bond's Q but is merely asinine.
Lack of creativity or thought shows up in the 8 segment titles which range from stupid ("The Man with the Golden Love Gun" or "License to Drill") to purely lazy (yes, one title is "From Russia with Love", unchanged). No stunts, SPFX or even a physical foot chase is included -perhaps the junkiest action film I've ever seen in this regard, and that includes those memorable '70s Fred Williamson-directed no- budget "action" movies. The sets are bare, one bedroom set being just lime green walls and a bed, and a Michael Vegas sex scene where the patched-together interior setting was truly embarrassing to look at.
Yeah, all my criticisms in this review will be dismissed with the standard "only the sex matters", but that mode of non-thinking will only put a company out of business, given the might-as-well-be-infinite proliferation of competing generic porn content these days thanks to the good old internet.
Irony is that I've seen worse DP effusions recently, so their downward spiral remains incomplete. At least for me, the label's reputation is irreversibly damaged.
What is most striking is that DP recently released a British-made spy feature "Monarch" that is terrific -combining hot sex with exciting action scenes. By contrast "Stryker" has consistently bad performances, 8 mechanical sex scenes spread over 8 half-hour-plus episodes, cheap sets, and no action at all. At times director Billy Visual(s) - even his fake name is apparently misspelled - directs like an amateur backyard moviemaker.
Obviously it is making fun of the ongoing James Bond powerhouse phenomenon, but without a clue regarding that franchise's derring-do or even humor. The cast is encouraged to posture, exaggerate and think they're being funny, leaving a viewer to merely jaw-drop at the clumsiness and groaner-jokes of scene after scene.
Chief culprit is Tommy Pistol, utterly miscast in the title role almost as if DP were trying to make the project bad on purpose -yes, there is an audience segment drawn towards intentional crap for God know's what reason. (I always suspected it was a subconscious desire to feel superior to what one's watching - the old "I could obviously do better" syndrome.)
He makes non-stop wise-cracks and thinks he's being hilarious -vintage Jerry Lewis (post-Dino) seems vastly subtler, even with fake teeth in Jerry's mouth. With slick-backed greasy hairdo, overabundance of tattoos and diminutive stature, plus Salvation Army wardrobe, he's not a satire of secret agents but reminded me instead of the look of vintage porn actor (circa 1970) Norman Fields in one of his 1- day wonders. All that's missing is Fields' porkpie hat.
But instead of interesting co-stars the likes of Suzanne Fields or Rene Bond from that halcyon soft-core morphing into hardcore era, we have current bombastic starlets, all of whom bring sexy bodies to the show but each giving perhaps her worst screen performance to date. Most awful by far are top-billed Raven Bay and Kenna James, both operatives for CRISIS, the independent spy organization run by Pistol's mom, Julia Ann. These two actresses recite their lines by rote at top- speed, as if refugees from a '40s Howard Hawks movie, except that when they swallow their words or in Kenna's case flub a line, it is left in the final print. I couldn't decide which was worse -listening to their incompetent gibberish or suffering through Pistol's well-honed untalented stand-up act.
Perhaps the only saving grace of the lengthy (over four hours including endless recaps and credit repeats) is the current flavor of the month Peta Jensen. She has probably the best body of any newcomer in the industry, and her sex scenes are hot. Also hot but in minor sex roles (as hookers or facsimiles thereof) are Eva Karera and Courtney James, like Peta bringing huge boobs to the party.
Storyline of competition between CRISIS and other idiotic spy orgs named D.I.C.K.S. and C.U.N.T.S. is minimal, with main subplot involving John Strong as a KGB head who has an off and on love affair with Julia (and who is presumed to be Pistol's daddy). Romantic rivalries between Raven and her femme teammates as well as Pistol vs. nerdy accountant Michael Vegas (sporting a Harpo Marx hairdo) predate in content the spy craze, playing like something out of a '50s movie like Gidget. Dane Cross looks physically unfit and is terrible in a stupid role that is supposed to suggest Bond's Q but is merely asinine.
Lack of creativity or thought shows up in the 8 segment titles which range from stupid ("The Man with the Golden Love Gun" or "License to Drill") to purely lazy (yes, one title is "From Russia with Love", unchanged). No stunts, SPFX or even a physical foot chase is included -perhaps the junkiest action film I've ever seen in this regard, and that includes those memorable '70s Fred Williamson-directed no- budget "action" movies. The sets are bare, one bedroom set being just lime green walls and a bed, and a Michael Vegas sex scene where the patched-together interior setting was truly embarrassing to look at.
Yeah, all my criticisms in this review will be dismissed with the standard "only the sex matters", but that mode of non-thinking will only put a company out of business, given the might-as-well-be-infinite proliferation of competing generic porn content these days thanks to the good old internet.
Irony is that I've seen worse DP effusions recently, so their downward spiral remains incomplete. At least for me, the label's reputation is irreversibly damaged.