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Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Red Zone Cuba Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 22 Reviews)

A Paradox on Which to Ponder
It just struck me, the ongoing verbal critique of the MST 3000 panel aside: If this movie were remade today with an identical script, but; If its locale was changed to Iraq in the year 2003; If slightly more production values were invested in it, and; If it was entered in the Sundance and Cannes film festivals as an "independent production," critics around the world would hail it for its "deeply symbolic subtext" and call it a "cautionary anti-war tale, told through a surrealist's lens."

I'll place a bet on that one, dollars to donuts!

It is just unfortunate that Coleman Francis suffered the unjust fate of making movies in an age when incompetence was called by its rightful name.

With the right PR firm and slick advertising, he'd be a pretentious multi-millionaire "auteur" these days!

"I Had to Finish Smoking Before I Could Laugh"
If you have never seen Mystery Science Theater 3000 this is the one to start with. Everything just clicks in this episode. The wonderfully bad Coleman Francis film makes perfect fodder for Mike and the bots. From the opening tones of the John Carradine sung theme, to the last Beast-of-Yucca-Flats-like helicopter rundown at the end, Red Zone Cuba is a riot. When Mike and the bots start making Curly of the 3 Stooges references at Coleman, through the inept guerilla training sequences, to the invasion of Cuba.....this is just one of the funniest episodes of the show. I know some folks get caught up in the Joel vs. Mike, or Comedy Central vs. Sci-Fi thing....who cares? This one-of-a-kind show is sorely missed in today's reality TV/King of Queens/According to Jim world, and no matter which episode you pop in you are guaranteed a good laugh with MST3K. Red Zone Cuba, for me just tops the list.

She's been blind since her husband was killed in the war
Some important people in Hollywood obviously lost some bets; that is the only way I can possibly rationalize the fact that someone let Coleman Francis write, direct, and star in this incredibly lousy movie. Francis lumbers through this movie like a zombie-a very lazy zombie. His penchant for close-ups is probably explained by a desire to show as little of the set as possible. He doesn't even bother about making smooth transitions between scenes; he just cuts each one off and jumps immediately to the next one. Of course, bad movies make for great Mystery Science Theater 3000 experiments, and this is no exception. While Mike and the Bots add a lot of humor to the viewing of Red Zone Cuba, even they are powerless to mute its incredibly boring and bewildering effects on the viewer. When the best part of the movie is John Carradine's singing, you are in trouble. Carradine also apparently lost a large bet; unlike everyone else in this movie, he at least has at least a semblance of a reputation in the industry, and his "guest appearance" is totally unimportant and generally unexplainable.

Here's what might be the plot if Red Zone Cuba had one. Coleman Francis' character has apparently broken out of prison, and he ends up tagging along with two of the most uninteresting characters you would ever meet. When you are on the outs, running from the law, and in need of money very badly, where do you go? Why, to a secret training camp where a handful of men are planning to invade Cuba and take up where the Bay of Pigs invasion failed, of course. Much to the frustration of our three heroes, they are not actually paid up front the thousand dollars they are expecting, and after training for about a day (it's hard to tell because night and day change continuously and look pretty much alike), they're off to Cuba. For a second, it looks like the invading forces (all seven of them) stand a chance-there can't be more than 10 Cubans there to oppose them (including a fellow with the worst Castro [imitation] beard you will ever want to see). Despite being captured and never attempting to flee through the incredibly big hole in the wall of their "prison," the trio somehow make their way back to the States (presumably, but all of the locations look alike) and try to go legit-the key word here is try.

There are some quite funny bits by the guys on the Satellite of Love. Mike, Crow, and Tom Servo are hilarious as they begin the show pretending to be rich, smarmy, pompous gamblers. Halfway through the movie, Mike begins to think he is Carol Channing, thus providing Crow with a golden opportunity to do his wonderful Carol Channing impersonation. There is a short before the film, but it is quite forgettable; posture was seemingly all the rage in the 1950s, and this little film seems to argue that, when giving a speech, how you look is more important than what you say (let me clarify the fact that this is not the famous "plenty of lip and tongue action" short on how to give a speech). For me, the funniest moment of the whole movie has nothing to do with Mike and the Bots-one of the characters says that his daughter has been blind ever since her husband was killed in the war. What? Oh, man, they just don't write movies like this anymore-or if they do, moviemakers have enough sense not to film them.

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