MOVIE REVIEW: Never Too Young to Die (1986)
The above statement — ”never too young to die” — is very true, but nowhere is it more pointed than in this movie. Never Too Young to Die is one of the few films made by the late Rev. Denise Matthews, more commonly known as Prince’s protege Vanity. She starred in a few movies in the 80’s — Action Jackson, Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon, 52 Pick-Up — and for me she was ALWAYS the main attraction. In this film she plays opposite heart-throb John Stamos, before he became Uncle Jesse on Full House. There are a few more notable cameos, like Peter Kwong (The Golden Child, Big Trouble in Little China), Robert Englund (the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise), Branscombe Richmond (Renegade [TV], The Scorpion King) and “Mr. Shannon Tweed” himself, Gene Simmons. The latter has an amazing tongue length, and it comes into play here — it’s not the weirdest part of the movie, so have a seat and learn about the legend of Drew Stargrove.
The movie is a weird spy-fantasy: Special Agent Drew Stargrove (played by one-time Bond actor George Lazenby) is killed by the terrorist Ragnar (Simmons) as the former tries and fails to stop Ragnar’s plot to poison California’s water supply with radioactive waste. Ragnar wanted no loose ends, so they went after Stargrove’s partner — Danja Deering (Vanity). They almost got her on the Stargrove retreat, but she got the drop on them and would have gotten rid of them if not for the untimely intervention of Lance (John Stamos), Agent Stargrove’s estranged gymnast son. Because of Lance’s barging in, the villain escaped and the barn blew up (it was the 80’s). This gives us plenty of time to learn about Lance.
Lance goes to private school and is on the gymnastics team, and he rooms with his friend Cliff (Peter Kwong), an engineering whiz with his own COMPUTER in 1986. That alone is amazing, but he’s an inventor too: he made a bubblegum tracker and an explosive fireball gun (probably called a Chekhov). In any case, upon the elder Stargrove’s death, Lance inherited the retreat. Since it’s his now he thought to check it out, and that’s how the barn got blown up. Despite all this ridiculousness and Lance’s rudeness, Danja still has to work and goes undercover at the punk club/drag bar called “Inferno” — where Ragnar is the main attraction. She wears an evening dress with sequins and a matching clutch to a punk club; granted, this is before the xXx movie told us how stupid evening-wear is when faced with dirty, post-apocalyptic, punk-rock terrorists. “Stay here,” Danja tells the younger Stargrove, but he’s a hard-headed “Real American” teenager (with his own dirt-bike, for crying out loud) and follows her into the craziest spy plot ever.
There’s a lot more to this movie, namely my appreciation for Vanity. Despite a lot of her role being tied up, scantily clad or in ripped clothes, she holds her own as a real action star, not over-acting or being TOO sexy…except this one part.
As some point, Lance saves Danja from certain death and she wants to “thank” him, like women often “thanked” men in late 20th Century movies: with unbridled sex. They are assigned to be bait to draw out Ragnar’s men (who still want them and what the elder Stargrove stole from Ragnar — a data disk MacGuffin called the “RAM-K”), and she decides to seduce Lance while on the job. Because it’s the 80’s, he’s a damn doofus and the movie spends SO much time on symbolism (Danja pouring water on herself, oiling herself up topless, her posturing and presenting, and the apples — MY GOD THE APPLES), that Lance and Danja have no time to bask in post-coital glow (FUCKING FINALLY; been waiting the past 5 minutes for those two to do something) before Ragnar’s men swoop in and capture them. But how did this happen when the entire site is under guard and being watched? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out…and for Vanity’s scenes, I heartily encourage you to do so.
CHOICE CUTS
- STARGROVE! (mumble mumble mumblmum) STARGROVE! STAAAR-GROVVVE!!
- I’ll be honest: while John Stamos is good on Full House, he is VERY un-likeable in this film. He is an asshole that has no frame of reference for what he’s gotten himself into and who he’s dealing with — on either side of the story.
- Danja reminds me of Neytiri from James Cameron’s AVATAR.
- More honesty: this movie is where I first learned about hermaphrodites. It was the worst place to learn, but I watched it at a time when folks called anything other than the gender binary as “weirdo”, “freak”, “pervert”, “sicko”, and other terms I won’t repeat here.
- The Finger. Ragnar has a sharpened fingernail, y’all — that’s it. Put a keyboard in front of him; that’ll solve the problem quicker than the cloak-and-dagger business.
- The RAM-K. Sounds like someone tried to explain that a computer’s files are stored in its RAM and each file takes up a certain amount of K (for kilobytes), then the writers fucked it up somehow.
- So many wasted apples. Either eat the one you have, wash off the one you dropped and eat that, or DON’T GET ANOTHER APPLE.
- Can you tell that was a point of contention for me — John Stamos wasting apples?
- Whatever the elder Stargrove did for Danja that made her stay loyal to him even after his death must have been amazing. Too bad we never find out what it was.
- There’s a few scenes that makes my stomach turn every time I see them, and you’ll know them when they happen; if yours doesn’t turn also, something’s wrong with you.
