Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe (1990)

You're a good person, Tommy. You can learn to control your power. You can speak.

Director
Damian Lee

Cast
Jesse Ventura - Abraxas
Sven-Ole Thorsen - Secundus
Marjorie Bransfield - Sonia Murray

I never heard of the 1990 movie Abraxes, Guardian of the Universe until a few months ago when I reviewed the Jim Belushi movie, The Principal. 
These two completely different movies have one thing in common. Belushi's character, Rick Latimer, from The Principal, has a cameo. That was about the only part I found interesting and enjoyable in this flick.
Otherwise, this movie felt like it was loosely pulling inspiration from Terminator in that an intergalactic bad guy from a different planet is on earth trying to kill a kid while an intergalactic good guy is trying to prevent that from happening. And the bad guy talks like Arnold Schwarzenegger. That might be due to the fact the actor playing the bad guy was born in Denmark (though, Arnold is from Austria.) The bad guy also has lines that were clear attempts at a catch phrase similar to "I'll be back" from Terminator. (i.e. "Have a nice day" .)  Again, I said "loosely."
I had to watch a version uploaded on a private channel on YouTube. I couldn't find a DVD copy. So, the quality in picture and sound was a little off, but I'm sure the movie, timed at an hour and a half, was complete.
The movie centers around two intergalactic police officers, Secundus (Sven-Ole Thorsen) and Abraxas (Jesse Ventura), from the planet Sargacia.
They're also known as "finders," and their race is similar to humans.
Like other finders, they both have an internal "answer box" which is also a scanner and a communicator. They use this internal device to test for what they call the "anti-life equation."
Though I don't believe this movie is based on any comic book story, the "anti-life equation" can be found in DC Comics where the villain Darkseid uses it to find sentient beings and control their minds. I couldn't determine if that was the same case with the equation in this movie or not.
Anyhow, in an effort to gain omnipotent powers and immortality, Secundus travels to Earth and looks for a "child producing member of the human race" (i.e. a woman) to impregnate with his offspring. He knocks up the first woman he finds, Sonia Murray (Marjorie Bransfield) by merely placing his open hand over her stomach. A glow emanates from his palm. And presto! A baby!
The offspring is meant to become "the comater" who will grow up to be a dangerous heir to Secundus, and the one who will figure out the answer to the anti-life equation.
Abraxas traps Secundus in order for the other intergalactic police to arrest him.
Just before she's about to deliver this child within minutes of becoming pregnant, Abraxas is ordered to destroy her before she actually gives birth. The clock is ticking down from minutes to seconds, and Abraxas can't bring himself to carry out the order. So, he let's her and the baby live.
Sonia quickly decides to keep the child, and with no shock or emotion at just conceiving and delivering him within the span of a few minutes.
She takes the baby home to her parents, who become angry at her for not knowing who the father is. They, too, are void of shock that she suddenly had a baby without ever showing signs of being pregnant.

Jesse Ventura as Abraxas.

Five years later, Sonia's son Tommy is a boy who looks older than five, and doesn't speak.
He possesses telekinetic powers, which are shown, but never really dealt with and don't serve much a purpose.
Secundus  meanwhile escapes from his prison, travels to Earth, and pursues Tommy. Abraxas in turn attempts to locate Secundus in order to destroy him before he reaches Tommy.
There's a lot of pseudo-scientific jargon thrown around and repeated, and even more story exposition in the form of Abraxas's narration right up to the end credits. The movie should have the title Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe: Jesse Ventura Will Tell You All About It. It throws the rule "show, don't tell" straight out the window. He speaks over nearly every scene from beginning to end, telling us what we could easily figure out by watching.
This, mixed with terrible scripted acting, especially from Ventura, makes the movie drawn out and boring.
Ventura has no emotion in his face, his body language, nor in his delivery. Watching soap bubbles pop one by one when doing dishes is more intriguing and generally fun to watch than Jesse Ventura's acting in Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe. The only sign he has personality here is the thin ponytail he sports in the film.
And much of the dialogue from Thorsen seems juvenile and amateur.
The intrigue, the SciFi story line, and the action isn't enough to stimulate my interest even by accident.

Sven-Ole Thorson as Secundus.

By the half-way point of the story, I found this movie to be painfully slow. I don't use that term loosely here. When I say painful, I mean it.
One particular scene left me feeling uncomfortable. In that scene, Abraxas is staying at Sonia and Tommy's place. It's night and he's lying bear chested in bed. Tommy walks into the bedroom and stares at Abraxas.
In Ventura's typical monotone method of line delivery, Abraxas says "I suppose you're not tired. Do you want to sit up here with me? I'll tell you a story. It's about two men who were partners."
I know the scene is meant to be something much more innocent. But it comes across as way more... eeooww. Surely, a producer had to have scratched their head with this terrible line of dialogue during the editing process.
This movie didn't try very hard. The only thing I managed to take away after watching it was that Jesse Ventura is more entertaining when he rambles on about conspiracy theories. And James Belushi's character Rick Latimer had a cameo in another movie I wasn't aware of. That was neat-o, I guess.


Coming soon...
With the popularity of comic book movies at its zenith, I picked out over 30 comic book movie titles to watch and critique. Some are obscure. Others, perhaps, largely forgotten. The rest are under-the-radar or simply hard to come by. These titles span several decades. Some of them date as far back as the silent film era. It'll be a comic book moviefest extravaganza! Stay tuned...