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| it's not easy being green, after all |
Once again, the characters are key in this little drama, so I'll spend a little time on them. The Leprechaun needs no introduction, and he's much the same here. Our leading man, Scott, is a kid on his way to college in L.A., but decides to see a bit of Vegas first. Lucky bastard even has his parents paying for his entire first year of school. He stops to help Tammy, a sexy apprentice magician who mostly functions as the damsel in distress.
We also have secondary characters in The Great Fazzio, a mediocre magician; Loretta, a has-been beauty who works as a lowly roulette table operator; and Mitch, a sleazy casino owner. These three all conspire in one way or another to seize the leprechaun's powers for themselves.
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| seen here in one of his weaker moments |
Notable moments/quotes: The fellow who sells the Leprechaun to Discount Apu says with a completely straight face the "statue" is a "good luck charm." It should be noted this man has an eyepatch, is walking with a crutch, has a hook hand, and takes only $20 for the thing.
The Leprechaun, after biting off some of the Indian guy's ear: "I like Indian food, so spicy!"
Scott: "Have you ever blown a rod before?"
Tammy: "Excuse me?"
Scott, in a casino, pulls out a $23,000 check that's supposed to cover his expenses at college. He promptly cashes it and starts gambling.
Thug, to Mitch: "Look sharp, be sharp."
Even Sleazier Entirely Legitimate Businessman: "No, no, tell him the other thing."
"Oh. Pay Arthur the money you owe him or I will kill you."
Leprechaun: "I told a terrible lie, and now you're gonna die!"
Scott happens to find a coin of the Leprechaun's and uses its powers to win back all the money he lost in the casino. It even blocks the house from cheating!
Leprechaun, having just cheated at craps: "This is my kind of place, crooked & sleazy. Stealing gold from humans is awfully easy!"
Fazzio, desperate for the kid's money, breaks into his room to steal it, only gets the coin, and pulls a classic maneuver when caught.
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| Krieger, you are my Oprah |
Loretta, after witnessing Mitch using the coin's magic to date rape drug Tammy: "Mandatory drug testing for all employees. That's it."
We then get a weird scene where a hypnotized Tammy, intent on getting some fat Italian lovin', slaps Mitch repeatedly in the elevator, saying it gets her excited.
After the magic wears off, Mitch watches a striptease thing on TV that comes to life and sex chokes him to death, because of course it does.
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| unsexily sanitized for your protection |
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| Yeah, this is leading to exactly what you think it is. |
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| maybe it's just the turbo lesbo haircut |
The Leprechaun, before doing the below: "Your boobs are big, your butt is small, but still you're in for quite a fall!"
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| her ass then explodes and she dies, because of course she does |
Take a guess: "For pulling this trick, I'll chop up your dick!"
Doctor, examining Scott's leprechaun transformation: "Now, listen to me! This may mean the difference between living and dying. ...Do you have health insurance?"
Fazzio, who has the coin at this point, wishes to be an amazing magician. The Leprechaun realizes his missing gold is there and goes to upstage ol' Fozzy.
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| It doesn't end well. |
My thoughts: This is actually the first movie in the series that kind of impresses me. Sure, a lot of this movie is silly, but I can't shake the feeling that Leprechaun 3 was supposed to wrap up a kind of trilogy. More on that later.
The series' formula is in top gear here. The addition of the throwaway hypercompetent shopkeep gives us a kind of temporary protagonist to root for while the main story and characters are setting up. We don't get to know too much about the pawn shop guy (including his name, although IMDB claims he has one), but it's still easy enough to root for him when he's battling the leprechaun. So we still get the rhyming, murdering action of the leprechaun to tide over the impatient while the rest of the cast is being set up.
Unfortunately, the cast is something of a mixed bag. Scott is a little too gee-whiz and naive, even for a first timer to Vegas, although he gets a little interesting when he keeps going leprechaun at inopportune times. This includes a final temptation sort of scene where the Leprechaun tempts Scott to "come to the green side" before Scott ultimately rejects it. However, there's not much to him besides that. Just kind of a nice guy who deals with having a bit of lep in him.
Mitch is... eh. He's a sleazy casino owner and has no personality beyond that. The Leprechaun remains as entertaining as ever, completely justifying his name in the title and whatever check Warwick Davis sold his dignity for six times over.
Somehow, all these characters form an engaging little ensemble, one of the strongest in the series. While this movie lacks the strong personality of Morty from the previous movie, it has enough character development spread out among the rest to compensate. The characters are oddly this B movie's greatest strength beyond its bizarre premise, although at times it tries a little too hard to make its characters memorable (see "man with no hand, eye, and walking on crutches").
This cast goes on to discover the way to "finally destroy" the leprechaun: destroy his gold. This is set up thanks to a CD reference guide to the supernatural that the late Indian badass had on his computer, and sets in motion a core theme for the movie. Sometimes, the serial killer in movies like this movie kill to punish teens for having premartial sex, or for humans' inhumanity to their own, but in this case, the punishment is for greed. At the climax of each of the first three movies, the main characters have to reject monetary gain to defeat the Leprechaun: the teens of the first movie actually give the little guy his gold back, the survivors of the second leave the gold behind as they walk off together, and this movie has Scott and Tammy actually melt the gold (and Leprechaun) into slag. Tammy even gets a bit at the end where she has a coin from the pot of gold, meaning she could have a wish. She throws it away, saying she has everything she wants as she and Scott walk off. It's a sweet ending, but one that the characters have to earn.
Initially, every character is motivated by greed of some sort. Scott, learning of the coin's power to grant wishes, immediately wishes he was on a winning gambling streak. To soften the blow to its main character, this is shown to be for unselfish reasons, as he had just stupidly gambled away tens of thousands of dollars that were to be used for his tuition. When Mitch gets the coin, he wishes for the love of Tammy, which fits as this is still a hunger to possess and control. Loretta wishes for youth and beauty, but she largely wants this to entice men with, presumably to obtain further riches with. Poor Fazzio wishes for excellence in his field, which would again lead to more money. All these wishes are selfish ones that reflect a self-centeredness on the part of all the characters, as every chance to get more money is seized with pleasure. Scott learns to overcome and eventually reject these desires as shown when he melts the gold and kills the leprechaun. Tammy, too, is tempted at the end of the film, but she rejects it, having seen firsthand the effects of greed. The Leprechaun is left smoldering, and everyone can be happy. I'd actually say this is the most effective theme in nearly any B movie I've watched, as it's consistent across three movies, and it's subtle enough to not seem overly moralizing to the casual observer. Setting the culmination of this theme against the backdrop of Vegas is a clever move, as well.
Unfortunately, this bit of competency isn't enough to save the movie overall.
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| totally not a prop, guys |
There are plenty of silly moments, like the leprechaun "disguising" himself to infiltrate a hospital. At least #2 had the excuse of it being St. Patrick's Day to excuse why he could go around in public without notice!
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| "I be a normal doctor, lass. Now let's see that sweet ass." |
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| This is just creepy, man |
Much as this movie would have improved if this were the final victory over the leprechaun, we're only half done with the original series of movies. And the next film is easily in my top 3 bad movies of all time and definitely not at all the only reason why I'm doing this retrospective.
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| it's coming |
wtf is a 'sex choke' c.c
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_asphyxiation
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