Return to Savage Beach (4½ Stars)

This is the twelfth and final film in the Andy Sidaris collection, made in 1998. It's been three months since I reviewed the eleventh film, "Day of the Warrior". No, I didn't forget about it. I just wanted to keep my readers in suspense. I was hoping someone would send me a message and ask me when the last film was coming, but no luck. Sometimes I wonder if my readers are paying attention.

I have mixed feelings about this film. On the one hand, it's the best film in the series in terms of the action and the production quality. On the other hand, I've never been able to figure out the film's premise. Every time I watch it I try to understand the explanation in the opening scenes, but it just doesn't make sense to me.

As the title suggests, the film is a sequel to "Savage Beach", which was made in 1989. In that film the secret agents Donna and Taryn crash landed on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean and got involved with treasure hunters searching for gold bars stolen by the Japanese army from the Philippines in World War Two. The film ends with the gold bars being found and returned to the Philippine government.

In the new film Rodrigo Martinez, one of the treasure hunters from the first film, wants to return to the island to retrieve a Golden Buddha that's still hidden. The island's location has been encoded on two floppy disks, and it can only be found if the two disks are combined. One disk is in Dallas, the other in Hawaii. He sends his agents to steal the two disks.

This is where I start getting confused. Rodrigo was already on the island, so why does he need the disks to find it again? Why did the Agency even bother encoding the island's location on two disks, because it was unimportant after the first mission ended? And even if the location really had been important, why all the trouble with two disks? It would have been easier to write the coordinates on a piece of paper and lock it in a safe.

The whole illogical plot seems to have been written as an excuse to involve Rodrigo Obregon, the actor playing Rodrigo Martinez, in fiendishly evil schemes. He's in his element. He's the most frequently used actor in Andy Sidaris' films. In the DVD bonus features there's an extended tribute to Rodrigo by Andy and Arlene Sidaris. Andy says he's one of the world's best actors. Arlene says that he appeared in ten of Andy's films: seven times as a bad guy, twice as a good guy and once as a transvestite. Curious. Does that mean that transvestites are outside of the boundaries of good and evil?

Rodrigo Martinez was shown being killed in an explosion in "Savage Beach". In this film we find out that he survived, but with facial burns. That's why he's wearing a mask that looks like a prop from a high school production of "Phantom of the Opera".

The film reunites the actresses Julie Strain (aka Big Julie), Julie K. Smith (aka Little Julie) and Shae Marks (aka Not-a-Julie) as the Agency operatives who have to return to Savage Beach to find the Golden Buddha before Rodrigo can get his evil hands on it.

A new agent is the Warrior, played by the wrestler Marcus Bagwell. We already saw him as a bad guy in "Day of the Warrior". Normally in Andy Sidaris' films actors only make the transition from bad guy to good guy by being killed and getting a new role. Not Marcus Bagwell. His character the Warrior did three months in prison and came out a reformed guy. Supposedly. My suspicion is that he just wanted to start a relationship with Willow Black (Julie Strain).

What do you think? Would you give up a life of crime to get your hands on Julie Strain? I wouldn't know. I've never been a criminal.

Without going into too many details – spoilers! – there are a series of plot twists at the end. In fact, there are so many plot twists that it looks like Andy Sidaris is deliberately parodying plot twists. It's like a ping pong ball shooting from one side to the other, not letting us know who the good guys and who the bad guys are. It's confusing. Let's just concentrate on what the film has to offer, something that everyone loves: girls with guns!

Big Julie has a big gun.

Little Julie has a little gun.

I'm sure Not-a-Julie has a gun somewhere. She must be hiding it.

As always, the film ends with the agents enjoying a glass of champagne to celebrate their victory. They have to. Without the final celebration scene it wouldn't be an Andy Sidaris film.

Here's a list of the films in the Andy Sidaris collection:

1. Malibu Express (1985)
2. Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987)
3. Picasso Trigger (1988)
4. Savage Beach (1989)
5. Guns (1990)
6. Do Or Die (1991)
7. Hard Hunted (1992)
8. Fit To Kill (1993)
9. Enemy Gold (1993)
10. The Dallas Connection (1994)
11. Day of the Warrior (1996)
12. Return to Savage Beach (1998)

They're all excellent films in their own way. Andy Sidaris was a creative genius, and I fear that there will never be another like him again. I'm sad that better versions of the films aren't available. They need to be remastered for Blu-ray. They are all films that deserve to be preserved in the best possible quality.

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