Naturally this movie stars Dean Cain, because after playing Superman on TV in the '90s he was contractually obligated to play literally anything for the rest of his life. Is he the plane in this movie or the volcano? Let's watch and see!

Turns out Dean Cain is a passenger on the plane while the volcano is just a massive pile of CG smoke destroying Hawaii. Also, four minutes into the film a lady on the plane looks at another passenger and says "Hank, right?" like she recognized him, only for the other shoe to drop and reveal these characters have never met and she just decides he should be named Hank. Is that a thing that happens in real life? Or just in the volcanoverse? In any event, I like her moxie.

Ten minutes into the movie and HOLY SHIT WE'RE FLYING A COMMERCIAL JET THROUGH A GODDAMN FIRESTORM!! IT'S HELL ON EARTH PLEASE FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS! This is more intense action than you'll find at a back alley fight over a stray dollar bill. It's like if boners and Christmas joined forces in a flaming apocalypse and tossed in Dean Cain for balance. Surely they'll fly over the volcano in a matter of minutes, right? Wrong, aerospace bitches! The flight is locked in an autopilot loop because reasons and we're never leaving this ring of fire!

Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
Wait, did that poster have the balls to tell us this was based on a true story?

This flick is chock-a-block with action -- a dude gets hit by a drink cart, Dean Cain has to force his hand into a small space, some asshole on a rope made of seatbelts gets eaten by an engine, and about 40 volcanoes appear from nowhere in about 30 seconds. Also, the same scene of a fireball falling towards the plane is used at least six different times. Not a similar scene, the exact same scene. And why not? When you have crackerjack special effects like this, no need to switch shit up.

In the end you can rest assured that plenty of planes fought plenty of volcanoes and some military guys who are really terrible at first aid rip the burned flesh off of some dude's arms by accident. A good time is had by all, except the scorched dead.

Now you may be thrown off by the fact Dollman is only an hour long and literally half of this is background explaining the previous movies the characters appeared in, but that just means the next half hour is all very tip-top shit. A robot and a killer GI Joe fighting a tiny, alien police officer in some duct work is the kind of thing you can't get wrong. Also a lot of really off-putting sex jokes from a baby doll.

Puppet Master is just over an hour and offers up the acting chops of Corey Feldman who defies expectations by never even trying to seem plausible or believable. It's like he's daring you to continue watching him and you will, if only to get to the next fart joke, of which there are several.

Dollman has a little more salt on it than Puppet Master, which seems to have been made for TV. Dollman busts out the F-Bombs (that's "fuck" to you and me) and also dedicates considerable airtime to an attempted toy rape, which is something probably no one ever needed to see. There's also an evil little person in it. Like, all the people in it are little, but one of the handful of regular-sized people is a little person. Did that makes sense? It does in the movie.

Full Moon Entertainment
Or maybe it was all the acid I was on. Hard to be sure.

In terms of plot we're not quite at Shakespeare level but let's just say Shakespeare-adjacent. In Dollman the toys want to resurrect a demon and a cop enlists the help of Dollman because he's short. That's actually what happens. In Puppet Master an evil toy maker plans to end the world on Christmas because why not? Lucky for the world Corey Feldman and his gargling-marbles voice have four sentient puppets who engage in a three-minute fight scene with the demonic toys at the end of the film, thus justifying the cost of admission. Also there's an iron maiden with both an automatic and manual crank. Not too shabby.

By ten minutes in we've met seven characters, each of whom has a unique personality trait. One is a smug asshole, one is an idiot, one is a dipshit, one is a chucklefuck, one is a bonehead, one is a moron and one is Jerri Manthey. She immediately makes a Gilligan's Island joke and that feeling you feel down south is the first stirrings of a movie boner.

CineTel Films
Ooooooh, Jerri Manthey.

The action takes place on a forbidden military-controlled island. You know how the military likes giant reptiles. Our heroes are treehuggers who go to the island to expose ... something. They don't know what, but man, it's probably something. Genetic stuff, probably. With corn and monkeys. Just go with it.

How tough is the cobra in this? It gets shot over 50 times (from the same roomy, bullet-filled gun) and that doesn't even stop it from eating a dude at the same time. Bullets mean nothing! Reptiles are king! But more monstrous? When the boat captain says "goddamn" he's literally censored by a squawking parrot. Self-censoring jungle sounds in a movie? That's shit even Michael Bay wouldn't think of. Also, the tough-as-nails heroine has the voice of a Care Bear. Bold casting, Komodo Vs. Cobra.

So what's the point here? A zombie outbreak screws up a bank robbery and also an old folks home. If you ever wanted to see an old-school slow-shamble zombie chase an old man using a walker in an even speed match, this is the movie for you. It also features old people using automatic weapons and more cussing from an Englishman than a Gordon Ramsay LARP. They have those, right?

Shout Factory!
Get the hell out of my kitchen!

The English are a fascinating people that really mirror Americans in so many ways. For instance, that upper class snooty New England accent is a lot like Heightened Received Pronunciation, which is your standard Downton Abbey sort of accent, and then your Alabama hillbilly drawl is pretty much the U.S. version of our Cockney friends, just this side of unintelligible and sounding vaguely made up. If this movie had been made with a bunch of Cumberbatches no one would have given a shit.