Trancers 4: Jack of Swords.

Oh, we've gone to normal numbers now have we, franchise? I like that though, I can pretend it has no relation to the other movies, because trust me guys - this one is bad, really, really fucking bad. You ready?


Trancers 4 and 5 were shot back to back, in and around a castle, which is a mark of quality right off the bat. The film has been called weird given the drastic redirection this instalment takes, but it hasn't necessarily been called bad. Go on then, Jack of Swords, reinvent Trancers for me!

Jack of Swords is basically the story of Jack Deth winding up in a generic, clichéd, low budget fantasy film. And it is fucking terrible. New director David Nutter and writer Peter David start their film by tearing down all the set-up from the far superior Deth Lives, the arrogant cunts. But hey, with this space we've free'd up, let's put in some product placement, yeah! Jack is sent to 2160 to investigate a time distortion in Kansas, only while in the time machine Deth is attacked by a stowaway that looks like a Power Ranger's villain causing Deth to crash-land in some kind of medieval gassy alternative dimension. Shame he didn't arrive at his actual destination, that one line of dialogue still sounds like a much more interesting premise than this garbage turned out to be. Deth eventually gets captured by Caliban who is 100% archetype 0% character. Deth, along with most of the audience, struggle to really believe any of this is actually happening. Admittedly for different reasons, but the action is the same. Jack eventually escapes with a bunch of rebels called 'Tunnel Rats' along with Caliban's son who is succumbing to his trancing heritage, this is also possibly Deth's own fault for attacking and beating the shit out of him. Oh well, only ten minutes left, clunky sword fighting, yeah! By the end, Jack is trapped in the world of Jack of Swords, which means we have to return to it, *insert dramatic Darth Vader no here*. Great, a stupid concept padded by clichés, this movie sucks. And yes, clichés are clichés for a reason, that is my argument, but using them to pad out your film, rather than writing your own story and characters is utter bullshit.

Although Shark is dead (seriously that pisses me off so much) we do have new gadgets since they were oddly missing in the third film and barely used in the second. We have a new Long Second Watch, this one has unlimited uses. A butterfly knife that cuts through anything and a RBG7 - Really Big Gun Seven, a gun that fires plasma blasts and it breaks down matter for ammo. This is some cool shit. And if you feared none of this will be used, you would be completely correct! The RBG7 has absolutely no effect on the trancers of the movie (apparently this is just it not 'working right') and the long second watch doesn't work in the alternative universe either, so it ends up slowing Deth down rather than his enemies, for fucks sake. I hate this film. Although the knife still works, apparently? And the gun works again at the end, for some reason? Why am I even surprised it can't keep its own, dumb ideas in check?

Jack feels oddly washed up in this film, he smokes more than he ever has, his partner is now a lamp and he has no wife or any kind of love triangle either. Even his new job as The Doctor from Doctor Who seems more out of the fact that without trancers, Jack Deth doesn't have a whole lot of purpose any more. Even when he finally arrives in the fantasy setting, none of his tech actually works and the fight choreography is so clunky, he ends up the emptiest badass since Snake Pliskin. By the end of the film they are struggling to fit Deth into the story at all, as the film moves onto things like magic and Deth is stripped of his tech, the only thing he has left is his scepticism, which counts for Jack Shit (omg a self referential joke!). Why did this film make it out of pre-production? Didn't anyone notice or point out how little this shit actually works? To give the film credit, where credit is due, the 'En garde, motherfucker' line did give me some real chuckles and a sense of 'classic Deth' but that is the only bit of credit this ass stain of a movie gets.

So trancers in this film are reinvented into medieval vampires? Well, it's different, I suppose. They also have statues which are connected to them...somehow to alert people to their death. Okay? That one is just stupid. In the end the tranpires reference themselves as trancers more than Deth does, who now seems to treat them exclusively as vampires which you can't really blame him for. Aside from some special effects, these are only trancers in reference, not in practice. This is so pathetically not a Trancers film, even the main character is having none of your bullshit. Seriously, what the fuck is this? Just putting a little future bit at the beginning for like ten minutes, making Jack Deth the main character and calling the enemies trancers...doesn't actually make it a trancers movie, you probably think it does but this has nothing to do with trancers on any kind of level. It's more like a crossover between this franchise and some Z-Grade fantasy franchise...or Jack Deth is just having a cameo in someone's Z-Grade fantasy franchise. Either way, it still fucking sucks and doesn't work.

Jack of Swords is easily the goofiest of all the Trancers films. The gritty, bloody violence of number 3? Gone. In its place, lots of Captain Kirkesque punchup's complete with cartoon sound effects. Trancers reimagined in a militaristic sense with a mixture of drugs, monsters and sex? Yeah, all of that is gone too as Jack runs around after Z-Grade vampire trancers in a tacky looking medieval setting. I can at least laugh at the amount of times actors act out what special effects are supposed to be doing for them, this movie looks so fucking cheap, it actually hurts a little.

Jack of Swords also comes with some of the worst acting in the entire series as well, the new characters in this film range from painfully hammy to I wonder if they are dubbed? Surely no one is that bad? What is it with Trancers franchise and really crap villains? Just once I'd like to see a subtle, badass performance rather than this horrid, stageesque acting.

So do I recommend it? What a steaming pile of garbage, I struggled to even get to the hour mark of this film, this has to have been the longest hour and fourteen minutes of my life. You can seriously tell this guy is used to directing TV shows, if Trancers was a TV show and not a movie franchise, this probably could have been an enjoyable what if scenario episode that shows do for filler, if it was all wrapped up by the end of the episode but as a whole movie the novelty wears so thin by the hour mark there is nothing of it left and to know we have to return for the sequel, please God no! It's just dumb, frustrating and ultimately doesn't work. You could also argue that number three had fuck all to do with the general franchise either and I would be inclined to agree to some extent as well but that was a cool reimagining, that kept true to the elements of the original and it actually worked, Jack of Swords doesn't, this film is shit, utterly and completely. Trancers 5 is a direct continuation of this film with the same writer and director, but I'm not even worried, there is no way this could get any worse. Right? You'll have to find out, next time...

Think About It!

-Locke