The forgotten but campy
The Apple is often considered the worst musical of all time. Apparently 1980 wasn’t exactly the best year to try a musical. Director Menahem Golan co-owned The Cannon Group with his cousin, Yoram Globus. They made some cheesy but popular films, like
Breakin’,
American Ninja, and
Missing in Action. They were also responsible for disasters like
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and the famously bad 1990 version of
Captain America that never made it to American theaters.
The Apple somehow tries to combine a future version of the Eurovision Song Contest (here, the 1994 Worldvision Song Festival) and a parable of the dangers of the entertainment industry with, wait for it, The Bible. You have analogues for Adam, Eve, and The Devil (Mr. Boogalow, who owns a label, of course). You have variations on temptation scenes (title song The Apple, which includes a sort of tour of Hell with dumb as anything lyrics “It’s a natural, natural, natural desire/Meet an actual, actual, actual vampire”). The climax of the film is The Rapture. Seriously, this is a real movie. Utterly crazy doesn’t even really cover it. But sadly, it’s not an eminently rewatchable kind of crazy. It’s just terrible.
This futuristic retelling of the story of Adam and Eve, set in the distant year of 1994. Mr. Boogalow is a record company executive who is symbolically the devil. Catherine Mary Stewart and George Gilmour are two Canadian ingénues who try to revive the long-dormant art of the love song (so 1970s!). Mr. Boogalow quickly puts a stop to that by tempting Stewart to the disco scene. The movie pretty much hits its record industry target, and predicts American Idol (except that, instead of soulless disco songs, for the most part the contestants on that show sing soulless ballads). It's not the stupidest movie in the world. On the other hand, it is one of the most garish imaginable, with its goofy futuristic clothes (people in the future always tend to like shiny things a lot), and the songs are beyond horrible. I do not recognize any stars in the film, and maybe that is for the best for all involved...
MY BAD RATING: 9 OUT OF 10
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