Fair Game, or Lots of Cindy Crawford Showering

It was with sadness in our hearts/internal fluidic processing units that we were forced to accept that we would not be able to review The Day The Earth Stood Still for our relaunch post. Still, this week we beamed down to our local DVD store from the mothership and tried to purchase a copy.

When the counter jockey attempted to present us with the 2008, Keanu Reeves version, Gort was less than impressed. During what has since become known as the Day The Earth Stood Still massacre, many of the staff of the store were disintegrated. To save the last few acne-ridden teens, I frantically grasped at alternatives.

In the very last bargain bucket, I happened across a particular joy I hadn't seen since my days in the Galactic Alliance Academy. At the top of my lungs, I bellowed: "Klaatu, Barada, Cindy Crawford's jubblies!!!"

With that, we left the smoking crater that had been our local DVD stockist and returned to the mothership to watch 90s classic Fair Game.

Cindy Crawford is a divorce lawyer with a tendency to shower at every available opportunity. Being the very first adopter of proto-feminism, an alien concept to everyone she meets, Cindy is both prone to loud irrationality in the face of danger and also to punching random people unconscious. Somehow, possibly by the above methods, she has become the target of an elite squad of Russian Special Forces assassins, led by master playwrite and The Most Mercenary Actor In Hollywood TM, the great Steven Berkoff. Her only hope is maverick cop William Baldwin, who somehow looks more like he's wearing prosthetic makeup than his older brother did in The Shadow. Baldwin seems to moonlight as a cop between being assaulted by abusive ex- girlfriend Salma Hayek.

What follows is something akin to The Net for people who have no idea about computers. Berkoff's goons dazzle our heroes by performing hacking feats that your teenage cousin could probably pull off with an iPhone nowadays. Our heroes giddily pay for hotel rooms by credit card and make calls to their colleagues from the room's phone, then seem shocked when Berkoff miraculously tracks them down. We're certain it is not a spoiler to tell you that Baldwin and Cindy end up in flagrante, before Berkoff gives up on trying to shoot, explode, drown or stab Cindy and instead whisks her back to his lair for Baldwin to rescue.

The plot makes absolutely zero sense and the dialogue is the kind of tangy, matured Brie that you would have specially imported from France in oak barrels for a special cheese-tasting evening you'd invited prominent members of the British cheese-tasting society to. As you delight in such lines as: "What do you call a Miami cop in a suit? The defendant", take a moment to appreciate the 90s fashion, such as shorts so high waisted they seem to have been designed by Simon Cowell.

Above all else, marvel at the fact that Cindy is *gasp* not completely terrible, or that the implausible action sequences, including a fight between Baldwin and "dude looks like a lady" Vasquez from Aliens herself, are actually competent. Then, take a moment to consider that this may be the greatest terrible B-movie you've seen, even before Cindy Crawford gets her kit off.