Trancers 4: Jack of Swords (1994)

Purely Joyful Movie!

A different way of telling a story

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Terrible, terrible, terrible. This film really has nothing to do with Trancers. Trancers is a sci-fi film noir that is cheesy and has great one liners. This film has only one of those things and that it is cheesy, in a bad way. It is OK to be a cheesy movie but you have to have redeeming factors. This film has no redeeming factors whatsoever. Tim Thomerson looks and feels like he does not want to be there and who can blame him, they are filming in Romania while his co star from the first Trancers, Helen Hunt, is sipping champagne at the Oscars laughing to herself, man, that could of been me, hahahaha. Jack Deth goes to the Dark Ages in a different dimension accidentally and all the nobles are Trancers. The Trancers in this movie are more like vampires draining the life energy from the humans/peasants. It sort of has an Army of Darkness vibe to it with Jack Deth coming from the future and going back to play dungeons and dragons and helps to rescue the peasants from the evil nobles. Jack Deth just comes of as rude and is throwing F Bombs everywhere and just doesn't seem like the same Jack Deth we have all grown to sort of like. These last two Trancers films are a disgrace to the Trancers franchise which was a likable franchise before these two gems. Highly avoid at all costs!If you want more reviews visit my Youtube channel Logan Toxic and visit my blog logantoxic.blogspot

Weird diversion for super Trancer hunter Jack Deth in this fourth movie. Director David Nutter is better known for his catalogue of TV drama episodes (such as 'Roswell') and thus effectively produces an attractive, slow and very television suited instalment for this series of films. Of course there is the usual Deth comical and ironic lines but these are not as strong as they previously were. The film has swearing and a little soft action (perhaps to justify its' direct to video origin). Cast do their best and a couple of now regular TV stars (like Lochlyn Munro) appear. Deth has no wives to deal with this time which should have led to a more action focused addition but somehow he spends most of the film having rather dull conversations with his co-stars. Filmed back to back with Trancers 5.

Tim Thomerson is terrific as the returning Jack Deth, yet he is surrounded by Shakespearean rejects who wouldn't even last five minutes in a Dumas novel. The pains of carrying this film way heavy on the character of Deth as he must talk in this film with characters like Prospero and Caliban. Caliban is the lead villain in this film where his kind of Trancers are vampiric who suck the lifeforce from the humans on the planet(when the humans turn white they're in the "safe zone", but if the color reaches blue then red during an uncontrollable feeding it's "uh oh"). Jack Deth had become a time cop, traveling through the boundaries of time and space, working for Stephen Macht who finds "rifts" and anomalies in certain times. So Deth goes where he is needed because if there's a mess needing cleaning, Jack's the man for the job. On route for another job, this creature who manifests itself on board Jack's time ship causes an accidental crash onto this medieval planet which looks like a small patch of area with a castle. Caliban is shown here by Clabe Hartley to be a towering presence who strikes fear in everyone under his rule. Humans can not stop him and his great power outmatches anyone who dares face him. Yep, Jack Deth winds up in this place and now poses a threat to Caliban. That's about as easy as the convoluted, confusing film gets. There's this old wizard whose prophesies spelled out Deth's arrival to the planet not to mention his artistic rendering was put on paper by the old timer hooded as if just coming from "Star Wars:Episode 1". Deth seems to represented in this film as a savior for the people, but if anyone saw how he handled a sword against Caliban might try thinking twice. It's hard to watch really. To be honest, Deth is perfectly suited for the urban sci-fi waters of LA, but in a sword and sorcery adventure, he looks out of place. Thomerson still makes this nonsense fun to watch and his face down with whomever comes at him is always thrilling. The dialog is really horrendous{I believe one character in the castle says finding Jack Deth will be like "looking for a needle in a haystack"..I kid you not},especially when Deth and Stacie Randal's "first" Lyra have a spat about how they act to each other. I'm pretty sure Thomerson would probably enjoy starring in a couple of higher quality pictures, but is seemingly stuck in poopers like this film where his charisma has to take up the slack.

After a late night TV viewing, i was sold. This film has everything - the cheesy goodness required of such films, characters with names like 'Prospero' and 'Jack Deth' (often referred to as Jack Sh*t), and brilliant visual effects (ie: crap). Seriously though, with a name like Prosperu, how can such a film go wrong? Regardless of any narrative shortcomings, pitiful set design, and completely irrational plot development, who comes to save the day? That's right. Prospero. Just one look at his face makes you happy to be alive.Don't get me wrong now. Trancers 4 IS a very bad film. I can't possibly recommend it to any human. However. It is the Citizen Kane of our time, if only for one man. A great man. A man whose face shall forever be etched into the minds of all mankind. He is power. He is lord. He is ... PROSPERO.