Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick:
Look, we enjoy all kinds of movies. A lot of why we do Two Cents is to spotlight movies we love, and to look for new treasures that may just live on in our personal pantheons.
But in order to full appreciate the breadth and variety of cinema, sometimes you have to dive deep into some crazy shit.
Never Too Young to Die is some crazy shit.
John Stamos is our star hero, a year or so out before he was immortalized as sensitive heart-throb Uncle Jesse on Full House. Here he’s Lance Stargrove, a college gymnast routinely disappointed by his father’s absence from his life. Turns out, dear old dad has a reason for always flaking out on Lance’s stuff: He’s one-time James Bond actor George Lazenby, and unbeknownst to Lance, he’s working as a super-spy to stop a mad… individual, from poisoning the water supply.
That individual is Velvet von Ragner, a bisexual hermaphrodite played by Gene Simmons from KISS. Ragner makes short work of George Lazenby, and Lance finds himself stepping into his father’s footsteps in espionage. Joined by the beautiful Danja (Vanity) and gadget whiz Cliff (Peter Kwong), Stargrove has to learn the spy ropes quickly.
So how is Never Too Young to Die?
You read the part about Gene Simmons playing a hermaphroditic supervillain, yeah? We’ll repeat: This is some crazy shit. But is it the kind of crazy shit that we can laugh along with and love, or is this some particularly ’80s madness that should have been left in that decade where it belonged.
Editor’s note: Brendan packed this article with Stamos gifs instead of actual images from the movie, and I guess we’re gonna roll with it.
Next Week’s Pick:
In honor of the latest film from Quentin Tarantino…. the first film from Quentin Tarantino. Watch Reservoir Dogs with us (it’s on Amazon Prime) and send us your thoughts on QT’s debut!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.coanytime before midnight on Thursday!
Our Guests
I first encountered Never Too Young To Die through C. Robert Cargill & Brian Salisbury’s Junkfood Cinema podcast, where the hook of the film’s insidiously catchy earworm of a theme song remains a recurring gag to this day. Never Too Young To Die is somehow both the quintessential 80s action flick and also wholly, weirdly unique. It is what one might call late-era Bondsploitation — a spy-fi action romp dealing in tropes and types made popular by the previous 20ish years of James Bond dominating the genre in pop culture. Never Too Young To Die arrived just one year after Roger Moore’s final Bond movie, and it’s notable that the film essentially casts John Stamos as the son of a past-his-prime Bond-like secret agent played by underrated one-time James Bond actor George Lazenby. Stamos is well cast as the young Lance Stargrove, and Vanity is fine as Agent Deering. Robert Englund even makes a brief appearance as a henchman!
But Never Too Young To Die also reflects some of the worst impulses of the 80s, mostly through Gene Simmons’ performance as the villainous Velvet Von Ragner. On the one hand, aspects of Simmons’ performance are almost indescribably campy. But that camp is inescapably linked to a kind of sneering, homophobic gay panic that threatens to drain the fun out of his scenes. It’s a shame too, because I really want to like this movie more than I do. However, its willingness to resort to particularly unpleasant stereotypes, even to cartoonish ends, prevent Never Too Young To Die from achieving 80s cult movie greatness. That said, I sort of want to double feature it with Gymkata.(@T_Lawson)
The Team
Taken just on its surface, Never Too Young To Die is a bit of a problem. Not just because of Gene Simmons horrifying performance as inter-sex villian Velvet Von Ragnar though that alone might cause people to avoid this film. The film suffers because, despite promising some truly screwball, off the wall excitement, it drags in multiple places. Yes, it is funny thinking someone like Stamos even had a life before Full House, but not that funny. The action is weak, and the goofs are only mildly amusing, especially if you find the spectacle of Simmons scenery chewing performance more corny than camp.
There is of course the subtext of the film. Stamos, a beautiful if mildly femme gymnast, resents his dad for being absent, but of course his dad is ACTUALLY a secret agent. This status, as an agent of the state, justifies any other failure the movie hints at. With his father’s death, Stamos realizes that the old guard of imperialist murderers were all that stood between bored teens like him and chaos, represented by gender fluid movie punks. Stamos finds the resolve to fight the forces of chaos (the left) not by training or courage or anything attainable, but simply by remembering who he is. Somehow, his “birthright” as a Stargrove is enough for him to defeat the powers of darkness who are honestly much more interesting than his own allies. If the film were not so ridiculous the fascist undertones would be outrageous.(@LiamRulz)
Unfortunately, I don’t think this ever crossed over from ‘bad’ and into ‘fun bad’ territory. The movie that most sprang to mind was Miami Connection, but whereas that movie is so misguided, so insane, but so powered by its own bizarre internal logic and warped auteur vision, Never Too Young to Die is mostly just dull.
Every so often Gene Simmons will pop up and attack the scenery with his teeth in a performance that is either the only element consistently keyed to the film’s actual tone/quality level or the most insane, misguided, hateful performance in the last few decades. Or, hell, maybe it’s a combo of the two.
If you’re someone with real affection for the ’80s aesthetic and this era of punks and jocks and homophobic homoeroticism, then I can totally see you having a fun time with this Bond riff. But after about a half hour my amusement ran out and I was just bored for the remaining hour. (@theTrueBrendanF)
Stargrove! 🎵
Trey has already captured my thoughts on this craziness pretty well, from its James Bond Jr approach to the weird and mean-spirited camp of Gene Simmons’ villain with an army of punks and bikers at his command. Though in his defense, he sure does go for broke with his over-the-top performance and his famously serpentine tongue even makes a cameo or two.
And then we’ve got Full House’s John Stamos as the student turned spy, hanging out with his gadget-creating roommate/pal (who is kind of like an older version of Data from The Goonies) and coasting through the entire movie on his boyish charisma.
But as much as I like Kiss and Uncle Jesse, let’s hear it for the late, great Vanity, who looks incredible, shows some hilariously awkward-in-a-fun-way chemistry with Stamos, and frankly has a nonsensical character on paper but somehow makes it work.
This is a pretty weird and very dated movie but for all its cheese and political incorrectness, the primary trio (which feels like stunt casting in hindsight but not so much in 1986) is worth the trip and I really enjoyed it. (Austin Vashaw)
Next week’s pick:
Reservoir Dogs — https://amzn.to/2LKlhOt