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AKA DJ Qbert’s Wave Twisters
DIRECTED BY: Syd Garon, Eric Henry
FEATURING: DJ Qbert, Yoga Frog, D-Styles, Flare, Buckethead
PLOT: When the dastardly Lord Ook deprives Arrow Town of the Four Lost Arts of Hip Hop — rhyming, scratching, breaking, and graffiti — it’s up to an intergalactic crew of dentists to liberate the town through the power of sick beats.
COMMENTS: Faced with a video album based on the musical stylings of a national and world champion DJ known as the Jimi Hendrix of the turntable, the last thing I would have expected was a coherent narrative. Yet that is what we get in Wave Twisters, a hip-hop sci-fi musical in which rapid-fire scratching and carefully chosen radio drama samples combine to tell a story that would have been at home in the days of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. From the outset, the movie’s strongest claim to weirdness is that it’s so unexpectedly linear and focused.
Don’t mistake that for any pretensions of depth. The story would not be out of place alongside the cheap sci-fi serials shot in Bronson Canyon in the 40s and 50s; strange aliens attack, and a group of square-jawed heroes save the day, complete with cliff-hanging chapters that slowly advance the conflict. It remains first and foremost a platform for the real star, DJ Qbert’s scratching wizardry. Qbert’s album came first, and it was up to directors Garon and Henry and co-writer/art director Doug Cunningham to transform the soundscape into a visual tale, while leaving Qbert’s original work intact. Considering the challenge, the result is impressive, with a charming comic book feel that takes advantage of limited animation. The images lend a broader sense of humor to Qbert’s sardonic wit; the DJ may have enjoyed finding a snippet of a classic serial villain declaring, “I am the Red Worm!,” but it’s the filmmakers who add lascivious gloss by putting that dialogue in the mouth of a symbiotic parasite residing in the navel of a baby in a luchador mask.
Perversely, it’s the beats that inadvertently drag down the story. With all the tunes working at roughly the same BPM, there’s not much variety in the energy, and you can feel the story slowing down to keep pace with the score. For example, a side trip wherein graffiti expert Honey is captured by the enemy is intriguing, especially as she is transformed into an ostrich. It looks cool, but it’s a dead end for the plot, and overlong as an eye-catching visual. Similarly, set pieces like an assassin stalking the crew down a hallway are tense for the first few seconds, but in short order the repetition becomes tiring. The visuals are in sync with the soundscape, but they never quite harmonize.
If nothing else, Wave Twisters is worth the watch to see Qbert and his colleagues in action. Amusingly, they are deployed in live action as agents of the bad guys, using their rapid-fire scratches and sonic tweaks as weapons against enemies of the state, but it’s remarkable watching them do their thing at breakneck speed. If it takes a wacky tale from the Golden Age of Science Fiction to show off the awesome instrumental power of the turntable, then by all means, get those dentists to space on the double.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by Katie. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
