User Reviews

Michael Gold (Brandon Lee) is a mercenary hired by the CIA to find a German scientist (Ernest Borgnine). The scientist has developed a laser technology that everyone wants. After their rendezvous on the beach, both Brandon and Borgnine are captured. This sets up the daring escape by Brandon, after which he volunteers to go back and find the professor.

This movie is classically bad. It seems to take place in Africa, with Soviet, Cuban and German soldiers involved. Debi Monahan rounds up the cast as the professor's daughter. She is thoroughly annoying in this role, as her voice seems to increase in pitch as she gets louder and is also very whiny. The only redeeming qualities of her character is her push up blue dress, which seems to be the only thing she wears during the movie (she does wear a white jump suit at the beginning and a bed sheet after the "sex" scene).

Brandon Lee is suppose to be the star of this movie, however, he comes off quite flat. Its not just the acting thats bad but also the action. I haven't seen so many drop-kicks since Star Trek : The Original Series. He also tries to emulate his father by doing "characterizations" (see Chinese Connection). The slapping Manuel sketch is a good indicator how bad his acting is. It is funny though. He also seems to pull off an Arab beggar.

To complement Brandon (other than Debi Monahan), we get Mr. Borgnine (whom we see actually sleeping during a scene), a crazy Soviet Colonel (who refuses to die), a white big game hunter and a pair of bungling Cuban soldiers (a female Sergeant and the beloved Manuel).

Nothing sums up this movie more completely than the "theme song" of the movie (Mercenary Man), which seems to be playing in either muzak form or the 80's bad rock form and the dialog.

Dialog such as :

(Brandon) I did my job. Pay me and let me get the hell outta here.

(CIA suit) Kiss ... my ... ass !!!

(Brandon) NO !

This movie was definitely worth the $4 I spent on it. RIP Brandon.

-Celluloid Rehab

While roaming the dollar DVD bin recently, I picked out this 1990 action movie that stars the late Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son. The only movie from Brandon that I had previously seen is probably the only movie of his that you've seen, 1994's "The Crow," which made him a star but cost him his life. He was shot to death during filming of that movie by an improperly loaded gun. I knew that he had done a few minor movies before that but had never seen any.

I'm not endorsing "Laser Mission." From the opening credits I could tell that it was very cheaply done. And, at least on this DVD, the audio is about a full second behind the visual! The movie is about a maverick government agent named Michael Gold (played by Lee), who goes on a mission to save a scientist named Braun (Ernest Borgnine), who is being forced by the Soviets to build a nuclear weapon, combining a laser with a huge diamond. Great stuff! Brandon's acting is okay, as is Borgnine's. I like Brandon's sarcastic wit. But much of the rest of the acting is pretty amateur, especially that of his character's love interest, Alissa (Debi Monahan) who might pass for a decent porno actress.

The action scenes aren't bad for a low budget movie but the script is weak and loaded with '80s action movie clichés. And it's especially humorous to see Alissa - who looks and acts like a typical blonde, air headed bimbo - joining Michael in blowing away dozens of bad guys! She also does some pretty impressive driving - in a peace wagon, no less - while Michael blows away still more bad guys from the back seat!

But there are two things that make the movie worth the dollar for me. One is that parts of it are so bad that they're hilarious, including one time when Brandon and a guy who he's fighting both fall off of a building about 30 feet high and Brandon lands just gets up and walks away! The other guy wasn't so lucky, falling on the spikes of a fence and dying.

And the other thing I love about the movie is the music, done by none other than David Knopfler of Dire Straits. He has one straight ahead rocker that is played during the opening credits, closing credits and several times in between. I guess they were either on a tight budget so they could afford little music or they really loved that song! I think it's played six times during the movie!

I'm pretty sure that's the only vocal song in the movie. The instrumental stuff is great, too. I detect a little Pink Floyd influence in David's music.

One other note of unintentional humor from "Laser Mission," in the movie, Brandon's character wants the mission so bad that he's not doing it for the money. Yet the aforementioned song that's featured over and over is titled "Mercenary Man!" 3/10

In only his second leading role, Brandon Lee already shows charisma and even a gift for self-parody, and he particularly shines when he's allowed to show his terrific fighting skills....unfortunately there is much more gun action than hand-to-hand combat here. His co-star, Debi Monahan, is not much of a fighter, but she's sexy, she can handle a gun and if there was a "best cleavage" award in the movies then I think she would have won it that year. Watching these two almost makes up for the forced "comic relief" from the secondary characters, the monotonous action, the confusing geography and the low production values. But who thought it was a good idea to have Ernest Borgnine waving a shotgun and running around in the desert at his age? (Happy belated 89th birthday, by the way!) (**)

Sometimes you just have to raid the DVD bin at the dollar store to have a good laugh with some friends. I found this jem today and promptly purchased it, sped home to toss it into my DVD player, and basked in the glory of my home theater.

Okay, not really. Obviously the movie is ripped from a VHS source, with the highly bleeding reds and hue saturation that would make a drag queen toss out his makeup bag.

The audio is pretty lo-fi, except for the odd instances where glass breaks and it magically turns into a life-like experience.

Brandon Lee reminds me of a young Bruce Campbell in this movie, believe it or not. Lots of corny dialogue and one-liners throughout. He gets beat up and shot at, and actually takes a few of the hits once in a while. There's TONS of continuity errors with the editing.

The accents are hilarious, as well as the spoken and written Spanish that was so poor I thought that I might have written it. Since I don't remember the movie actually saying they were in Cuba, it's funny to just imagine some fictional land of VW vans with unlimited fuel supplies, disappearing camels, and 400 mile deserts that are very easy to navigate through as long as you find a horse after it ran away a day ago.

The movie is actually somewhat fast-paced, unlike most of the garbage that was intolerable even while inebriated that I've grabbed up from the $1 bins.

Next time you run by it, pick yourself up a copy, then pour out some of your 40 in memory of the late, great, Brandon Lee.

Well… "Laser Mission" is obviously not a good film. But, Brandon Lee does show what good breeding can do for a man. And, Debi Monahan does show what good cleavage can do for a woman. The low-cut blue dress Ms. Monahan wears on her date with Mr. Lee makes its points. She keeps it on for almost the entire movie. You also get a lot of fighting, shooting, and Ernest Borgnine.

"Kidnapped by Soviet agents, Professor Braun (Borgnine) is forced to work on a powerful laser weapon that could be used to enslave the world," according to the DVD synopsis, "The CIA decides to send agents Michael Gold (Lee) and Alissa (Monahan) into Cuba to retrieve the scientist and a cache of diamonds being used to build the weapon." The soundtrack, by David Knopfler, is rare and well done.

*** Laser Mission (11/89) B.J. Davis ~ Brandon Lee, Debi Monahan, Ernest Borgnine, Graham Clarke

Let me just say this is by far one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Brandon, buddy, what the H-E-Double hockey sticks were you doing in this piece of trash!? Don't get me wrong. I'm one of those guys who loves the worst kind of movies, but this one is just too much. I watched this hoping for a combination of the misty classics Warrior of the Lost World and Space Mutiny, but instead got a combination of a bad James Bond, a silly episode of MacGyver, and experiencing a root canal without Novocain. There isn't a single character that isn't nail bitingly irritating, and any hint of a plot is completely absent. Unless you're a die hard Brandon Lee fan, or you're some kind of film masochist, avoid at all costs.

This turkey came with the "50 SciFi Classics" pack - a real treasure trove for the bad cinema aficionado. I can't add much to what's already been said about the lousy scripting, acting and directing, but there's one scene near the end that's the pièce de résistance. Michael Gold takes a carefully aimed shot in the back less than twenty feet away. The front of his shirt just oozes blood and he staggers around at first. It got my hopes up for a minute. Miraculously, however, he seems to recover more and more as time goes on. Before long we see him running, knocking off more bad guys and making his usual wisecracks. Once in a while he grabs his shirt to stanch the blood, but he by the end of the film the wound is all but forgotten. Well, you knew nothing bad was going to happen to him when Kalishnakov inexplicably removes the handcuffs and allows himself to be overpowered.

A couple people speculated that the film's fictional setting was Cuba. I believe it opened in some made-up sub-Saharan nation - I'm not going back to look up the name - but it was stated during one of the briefings that the bad guys were on their way to Namibia, a real desert country in southwest Africa. I only make note of it because I traveled there a couple years ago, and I swear I recognized one of the street scenes they used as well as the distinctive color of the Namib desert sand. It makes me wonder if they blew most of the filming budget on a boondoggle to Africa for a few location shots.

We are entreated with a song that sounds like leftover sixties or a Hallmark love story; they keep playing it over and over and over. Michael Gold (Brandon Lee) independent agent or mercenary is tasked with bringing back or killing a laser scientist Prof. Braun (Ernest Borgnine) probably related to Eva. If the scientist's laser knowledge is crossed with the world's biggest diamond it will create, are you ready for this? Nuclear weapons. To do this mission Michael must team up with the professor's libeling daughter Alissa (Michael).

The only problem is that the CIA does not trust him. The daughter turns out to have an annoyingly negative attitude.

Is she for real as she can shoot, drive, and cross 40 miles of desert in high heels?

Is the professor what he seems as he seems chummy with the bad guys?

Is Sgt. Roberta (Maureen Lahoud) a sergeant or a girl? In any case, she is part of a Laurel and Hearty team.

Like a cheap Bond movie will Gold get the professor, diamond, and daughter? Does he want to?

After you get the bad taste of this movie out of your mouth, watch Ernest Borgnine put his accent to effective use in "Ice Station Zebra" (1968)

Probably one of the best bad low budget movies I've ever seen. This movie was purchased by a friend and I at a gas station in a 50 pack with other equally bad (but not as entertaining) films. That means it cost me around.70 to watch this and it was worth EVERY penny!

More great bad lines than you can ever imagine. Bad ideas and worse acting, this film is stone cold terrible but I doubt you won't be even a little entertained by it!

"Bad News, it appears the Russians are on some kind of LAZER MISSION"

Ok, so the Russians are on a Laser Mission... for a huge diamond and Ernest Borgnine... in Cuba.... which doesn't have a desert but still manages to appear as part of the scenery. This film has more than you could ever ask for, ALL STAR CAST, quality stock footage, crazy dialogue, a budget of $32 and a case of Schlitz beer.

I can't say enough despite that of how great this movie was to watch. This movie is so bad that, lines from this film have actually entered my daily vernacular! If you see only one movie this year, see Laser Mission!

It's as if someone said, "There have been lots of good spy movies made. Let's make one that isn't clever, isn't exciting, makes very little sense, and see if we can get people to go to it." I doubt that many did. When I saw our boy Chuck Bronson killing armies of people with one shot in all those Death Wish movies, I thought I had had enough. These people that are able to run around with weapons and kill people by shooting them out of tower, off roofs, and right in front of them, gets really tiring. It's not much different than a bunch of ten year old's playing war. Every shot finds its mark and no one can hit the broad side of a barn on the other side. Of course, their approach to combat is to run at the guy with the gun, holding your weapon to the side, and stop. Ernest Borgnine must have been really hard up for parts (remember, he was once an Academy Award winner). This isn't tongue in cheek fun (although they try to throw in a little humor). It's just abjectly tiresome. Find an old James Bond film.

I can't say much that hasn't already been said brilliantly. Obviously, many of you love the bad movies the way I do.

For those of you reading this who have not seen the film, I'll tell you exactly why you should watch it: It's Brandon Lee in a feature-length Mentos commercial. I kid you not. The look and feel of this movie simply scream "The Freshmaker." You know you want to see it now.

And just to correct one bit of info someone else posted, the one and only song used in this movie (over and over and over) is indeed by David Knopfler. David was not, however, in Dire Straits. That was his brother Mark. This movie was only able to afford David. Sorta like getting Ted Mellencamp. Not good.

This might have been a decent movie if they had any money to spend on it. Brandon Lee is the only good thing about it. I think I could make about as good of a movie myself with a camcorder. In fact they may have used camcorders because the picture isn't very good and I bought it new! Brandon Lee displays a comedic side here that was interesting. Other than that, forgettable.

I only watched this movie because I was bored one Sunday afternoon and I had received a Sci-Fi Classics collection as gift, and because it starred the late, great Brandon Lee, whom I only have seen in the movie "The Crow", which I loved. I love to watch cheesy low-budget sci-fi movies, and movies that are "so bad they're good", but this was neither. It was just horrible all around. Probably the most annoying part was the terrible sound quality. I would have to turn my TV's volume on maximum and I still couldn't hear the muffled dialog, yet soon afterward there would be a deafening sound effect. Haven't these people heard of boom mikes?

Also, the story was a muddled mess, with basically Brandon running around, looking a lot like a poor man's Dean Cain, shooting black guys dressed in Army fatigues and being a jerk to the obligatory blonde sex-interest. I must admit, I liked the woman much more than Lee. Her cute 80's look and nice cleavage were the only things that kept me from completely tuning out this "movie". Someone else called this a B-movie, but that is giving it way too much praise.

The things that usually make these types of movies appealing are mostly absent, like gratuitous violence (there is virtually none here), a sci-fi element (none), sex or nudity (none worth mentioning). etc. Why this was in a Sci-Fi collection is beyond me. And the main thing that bothered me: NO FREAKING LASERS!!! WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU CALL A MOVIE "LASER MISSION" AND NOT HAVE A SINGLE DAMN LASER IN IT?!?

I've considered Brandon Lee to be one of my favourite actors for a while. Of course, I'd never seen 'Laser Mission'. I may be a blind fan boy most of the time, but even I can't accept 'Laser Mission' as a Brandon Lee movie. Then again, I never intended to, as it was my first foray into a pack of fifty "classic" sci-fi movie, and obviously one of those movies that are amazingly and amusingly bad.

'Laser Mission' would have made a whole lot more sense if it DIDN'T have a plot. Unfortunately, there is a plot. A plot that lacks any coherence, and some 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' style plot holes and continuity blunders.

Brandon plays Michael Gold, a freelance spy (a mercenary, perhaps?) working for the CIA. Gold's mission is to get to Professor Braun (Ernest Borginine, I've been told he was a real actor sometime before appearing in this) before the bad guys do. It seems Professor Braun has come up with plans for a doomsday device, but not actually built it yet, ensuring his status on the border between normal scientist and mad scientist. Prof. Braun is hiding out in a fictitious African country, being chased by what are either German or Russian spies / headhunters, and Cuban soldiers (being the comic relief). In order to find Braun, Gold must make contact with Braun's daughter, an American veterinarian and KGB spy. That's all I understood. I stopped trying to make sense of things after a while.

We all know plots are generally neglected in action movies, right from the Hollywood blockbuster to the b-movie with a tiny budget. That doesn't mean that a plot has to be so mind bendingly stupid that all you can do is laugh. A simple revenge story will suffice, not some crazy story that would probably be suited to a James Bond movie if it made a little sense. On the other hand, judging by 'Die Another Die', it won't be long before 007 ends up in a 'Laser Mission' remake. In fact, this does reminds me a lot of Jackie Chan's 'Armour of God 2: Operation Condor', both in story and location.

I think director BJ Davis assumed that lots of explosions would make up for the lack of any quality fight scenes in the film. It sure looks that way, but I'll give Davis credit: It must have taken tremendous talent to get Brandon Lee to look absolutely terrible in a fight scene. Half of the fights consist of stunt men diving in Brandon's general direction, and Brandon doing something to make it look he is actually fighting with the waves of diving stunt men. How symbolic is the fact that the best fight scene in the movie (a very ordinary scene by normal standards) is partially obscured by a horse's ass (I thought they used camels in the desert, and just where did that horse come from anyway?). Again, all you can do is laugh. Or cringe. At least the car chase is almost exciting.

As much as I hated 'Blind Vengeance', I have to admit that even 'Blind Vengeance' had better production values than this. However, 'Blind Vengeance' didn't have any rock ballads. Rock ballads make anything better. In this case, we have a rock ballad called 'Mercenary Man' that is played nearly non-stop throughout the whole movie. Apparently it was composed by none other than David Knopfler, once the guitarist of Dire Straits.

'Laser Mission' is a terrible, incredibly cheesy b-grade action movie. It'll either make you laugh, or make you cringe. For what it's worth, I laughed - 2/10

Brandon Lee stars as 007 styled spy (Or he's a mercenary because the damn song that kept playing called him a mercenary, go figure) who travels to South Africa to rescue a scientist (Borgnine, in an accent that must be heard to be believed) from a bunch of goons who want Borgnine to turn a diamond into a laser weapon. (This plot angle certifies the level of credibility we are dealing with) Brandon Lee sure made a lot of bad movies in his day. With the overrated Rapid Fire, the mediocre (though watchable)Showdown In Little Tokyo and of course this movie, one can only conclude that The Crow really was his best effort. (Actually his Hong Kong produced movie Legacy Of Rage is supposed to be pretty good. I ordered it, to review it) Anyway Laser Mission is easily the worst from Brandon Lee but that's not to say it isn't entertaining. It is in fact ultimately hilarious. When Laser Mission starts we witness men put gas-masks on while the credits role and the Laser Mission theme plays and we meet people at a party, when the guy explains the caliber of quality of the diamond, the crowd breaks out in hilarious whistling. The directing apparently implies that this was filmed with a hand-held camera (the cheapest type) and people are gassed all for a diamond which looks really fake. Brandon Lee then arrives talks to Ernest Borgnine, gets shot with a dart and then wakes up in prison. He fights his way out and these action sequences are truly stilted. Worst of all is the acting from Debi Monahan (The Seinfeld chick who got killed, right?) Her high pitched squealing along with Lee's overly smug presence (Seriously Brandon Lee was an appealing actor, but not here) make for the funniest moments. Brandon Lee also dresses up as a Cuban, we see two Cuban soldiers who are movie's would be comic relief make the same jokes over and over again. The funniest part of the movie is the climax where we see Brandon Lee get shot at by the main bad guy but then run him over with the car. However when he gets shot at, he's standing outside the car, the next shot is edited of the car charging towards him. Hilarious. More unintentional hilarity ensues but hey this movie was only 2.99 and if you're a big time Brandon Lee fan, or a fan of camp this is perfect cheese.

* out of 4-(Bad)

Brandon Lee stars as Michael Gold a mercenary who is hired by the U.S to capture a scientist who has the expertise to make a nuclear weapon out of laser in this lackluster effort. Brandon Lee sure has charisma but this pedestrian effort is far too cheap and lame to be taken seriously. Very bad stuff, but some unintentional humor remains through out.

Laser Mission finds Brandon Lee as an independent contractor who occasionally works for the CIA, kind of like a private eye on retainer. And like the private eyes of the Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe mold, he earns the enmity of the regular CIA operatives the way those detectives were hated by the regular cops.

Would that Laser Mission be only approaching the quality of a Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler work. What Brandon's mission is, is to get both scientist Ernest Borgnine and a big Hope Diamond like diamond out of the hands of some Russian and Cuban operatives working out of some nameless East African nation. These guys want to build the biggest laser weapon ever and start shooting down planes, missiles, anything that flies.

Sad to say that times overtook Laser Mission, as it was coming out the Cold War was coming to an end. Not that this film was destined to be a classic in any event. The Russians and Cubans are some of the dumbest villains ever, you'd have to go back to the worst World War II era flag-wavers to find villains as dumb as these.

Unless you like Brandon Lee's karate moves, skip this one.

You can tell that is movie is a low budget film, but Brandon Lee still shines through.

My favorite part of the film is when Michael Gold sky dives out of the airplane and drops into the army encampment disguised as one of their own. The voice characterization is truly amazing!

If you are a Brandon Lee fan this movie is a must see.

This is another quality bad film from the eighties that makes little to no sense, but has plenty of explosions, gunfire and daftness to keep you happy.

Brandon Lee is sent to some country to rescue randomly accented scientist Ernest Borgnine. What country it is I have no idea, but it has plenty of cubans, a desert, camels and diamond mines and seems to be run by Germans and Russians. The German bad guy here is Werner Pocath, who somehow must have got lost trying to find the latest Italian production and ended up in this film instead.

Brandon puts us through our paces by doing impressions of beggars and military officers before hooking up with Borgnine's low-cut dress wearing daughter and tearing off looking for Borgnine, who can somehow use lasers and diamonds to make nuclear weapons, all done to the tune 'mercanary man" by David Knopfler, over and over again.

To hell with the plot. You've got many impossible gunfights (even Borgnine gets involved), things blowing up real good, terrible banter between our heroes, lots of standing around laughing, bad guys that won't die and other bad guy who do really stupid things, like releasing Lee from handcuffs and getting immediately killed.

You've also got a punch up filmed from underneath a horse's stomach, editing that makes no sense (especially a fist fight with Pocath, where they randomly teleport onto a roof), and the battle at the end while have you going "how did they?" and "Why did he?" to yourself (or friends, if you have any of those). There's even a spelling mistake at the end credits by the people who did the end credits, in their own credit!

This SCi-fi free film is part of Mill Creek's 50 Sci Fi Classics box set. So it'll cost you barely anything.