Monday night - pizza, a cool beer and some Chuck Norris, a perfect combo! Invasion U.S.A. (1985) is quintessential Chuck at his 80's best, the kind of hyper comic book ultra-violent actioner which only that decade could have produced. One of Cannon’s better-looking action films, it achieves a nice epic scope, thanks in part to the filmmakers being able to literally destroy and blow-up an entire suburban neighborhood and part of the Dadeland Mall in Florida, both of which were due to be bulldozed. Solid direction by Joseph (The Prowler, Missing In Action) Zito, some impressive stunt work, and an entertainingly psychotic performance by the late Richard Lynch as the chief bad guy (though the great Billy Drago’s villain character is killed off far too quickly). AND it’s got a scene where Chuck lies on his seedy hotel room bed watching Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) on TV! The plot, about boatloads of terrorists storming ashore in Florida and fanning out across the state to spread random destruction and mayhem, is pretty ludicrous, but if the events of 9/11 had been depicted in an action movie in 1985, they probably would have seemed just as far-fetched.
This is the cover for paperback novelization tie-in, published by Pinnacle Books and written by ‘Jason Frost’ (an in-house pseudonym usually used by two authors, Raymond Obstfeld and Rich Rainey).
