[Joe Bob Briggs' Review of Maximum Overdrive]

 From: John Laviolette
 Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995

finally got around to keying in one of the articles I have for the 
growing Yeardley Smith archives.  I'll work on the LA Times interview next.

Movie review of Maximum Overdrive, by Joe Bob Briggs

. . . Speakin of stupid machines that don't work, Maximum Overdrive is Big Steve King's directing debut and I already know what you're thinkin. You're thinkin, "Oh, sure, Joe Bob, you're gonna say it's not Steve's fault when the movie starts peterin out after about an hour, cause he's just a writer."

That's just so wrong it makes me want to puke.

There's a good reason Maximum Overdrive drops its transmission after the first hour, and that's because Steve tried to direct a love scene.

Think about it. Everything was fine up to that point, right? I mean, we got the machines slowly trying to take over the world. We got the bank sign flashin the f-word. We got the great scene where the draw- bridge goes up by its ownself and destroys eight, ten motor vehicles, including the famous Watermelon Fu shot. We got the maniac cigarette machine, the attack diesel pump, the leapin electric carving knife, video game electrocutions, a little kid on his bike gettin Aunt Jemimaed by a steamroller, Coke-can brain surgery, various forms of deranged lawn-care equipment, exploding 18-wheeler aliens, and, of course, Pat Hingle runnin around shootin off a bazooka he happens to keep in the basement of his truck stop. Great stuff. Great flick.

Then what happens? Emilio Estevez and Laura Harrington do this pathetic little kissing scene, and a couple of scenes later they start makin the sign of the four-legged spouting walrus, and you know what that adds up to?

A Perry Como music video.

The flick sorta hunkers down after that, while we wait on the eighteen- wheelers to stop trying to take over the world and let some special- effects man blow em all up, but it takes forever cause we got about 20 minutes too much plot in here.

It's okay, though. I still want Steve to do it again, cause he gets three stars first time out of the box and a 93 on the Twisted Metal Meter.

One breast (I think). Twenty dead bodies. One dead dog. Twenty-eight dead motor vehicles. Six quarts of blood. Decent AC/DC tunes. Twelve exploding trucks. One exploding ice-cream truck. Two motor vehicle chases. Wrist carving. Random videogame electrocutions. Little Leaguers massacred for no reason. Steamrolling of small children. Ventillated Pat Hingle. Filthy restrooms. Gratuitous version of "King of the Road." Vending fu. Diesel fu. Garbage truck fu. Bazooka fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Yeardley Smith, as Connie the whining newleywed, for saying "Curtis, are you dead?" and "Oh, honey, you're bleeding like a stuck pig"' Ellen McElduff, as Wanda June the waitress, for getting drunk and screaming "They can't! We made them!"; and Big Steve, for landing a part in his own movie.

Three stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

 
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those interested in the story Joe Bob spins at the beginning of the
review, or those wishing to read his other reviews of such classic films
as _Gymkata_,  _Raw Deal_,  _Psycho III_,  and _Dead-End Drive-In_, are
encouraged to find _Joe Bob Goes Back to the Drive-In_, available in non-
Communist countries everywhere. . .