Bullet Points: DNA (1996)
In the 36 years since its release, I have yet to encounter anyone who is not a fan of Predator. The reaction usually ranges from good f’n movie to greatest action movie of all-time.
Today I’d like to spotlight a man who clearly is a huge Predator fan, Nick Davis, the scribe of 1996’s DNA… a movie clearly influenced by the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic.
- Back To His Roots: Mark Dacascos plays Ash Mattley, a doctor running a make shift hospital in Northern Borneo. While Ash always intended to go back to Borneo and help the people in that region of the world (Ash was actually raised by a local tribe in Northern Borneo), the timeline was accelerated after Ash found himself exiled by the medical community at large. Ash had been doing a study on an enzyme found in a rare beetle indigenous to Borneo, an enzyme that Ash believed could be the medical discovery of a lifetime and save countless human lives… which would be great for people, but probably not so great for the business of health care. A bump in the road in Ash’s research was all that was needed to discredit his theory and send him packing. However there is one doctor who was intrigued by Ash’s enzyme work, a doctor who had also been sending much needed supplies to Ash’s hospital… Dr. Carl Wessinger (Jürgen Prochnow, Hurricane Smith), who continued Ash’s enzyme research, cracked the code and proved Ash’s theory correct!
- BeetleMania: A validated Ash is more than happy to take Wessinger on an expedition to find more beetles and this was about the time I started thinking to myself… is Jürgen Prochnow going to be a good guy in this movie? And as soon as some beetles are found in a cave deep in the Borneo jungle, Prochnow’s Wessinger starts shooting guides and showing his true colors, before staging his own death. That’s the Jürgen Prochnow I know.
- Two Years Later: The movie jumps forward, with Ash Mattley still running his hospital and dealing with a string of gruesome murders, murders that the locals are attributing to the mythical beast known as the Balaki. Ash isn’t 100% on board with the Balaki theory, but does have the sense to know that myths are rooted in fact, so he isn’t ruling anything out. The latest victim of the supposed Balakai attacks is the sister of young Matzu. Matzu will become Short Round to Ash’s Indiana Jones… which means all they need is their Willie Scott and they get that in the form of CIA Agent Claire Sommers. Sommers and Ash get off to a rough start (a red flag that they’ll be lovers by the end of the movie) and she blows Ash’s mind when she tells him that Dr. Wessinger is alive and had actually been working for the government and they had been monitoring his activities but about two weeks ago they lost contact with him which is quite coincidental, since it was about 2 weeks ago that the gruesome killings started too.
- In Search Of: Ash, Sommers and Matzu begin their journey to track down Wessinger and encounter some of the obligatory obstacles along the way. The trio eventually make it to Wessinger’s highly fortified compound, but when they get inside they find that it was recently abandoned… they also realize they are not alone… the Balaki is there!! Matzu ends up separated from Ash and Sommers which ups the peril even more. And when Ash goes looking for Matzu he ends up having an unhappy reunion with his old buddy Wessinger who was holed up in a panic room of sorts since the beast he brought back to life is now running amok in his facility. We get the backstory of the Balakai and find out it was in fact an alien creature that terrorized the jungle centuries earlier… the remains of the Balakai were buried in the jungle and Wessinger used the beetle enzymes to reanimate it. Now he plans on cloning them and selling them as a weapon to the highest bidder… then it happens, the power to the facility is cut which means the high voltage fence keeping the Balakai inside, is down and the Balakai can go wherever it wants… but Wessinger has a team of mercenaries at his disposal so he is confident he’ll get his investment back. Surely a team of men with a high level of military training and experience can bring down a space alien in the jungle, right?
- This Time It’s Personal: Wrong, the mercenaries fail and then the war with the Balakai get personal for Ash Mattley… he is going to have to be the one to take down the Balakai. Ash gets painted up for war and is ready to take down the Balakai the way the tribal warriors of the past did in that very jungle… although I should point out that Ash does have access to a rocket launcher.
The lawyers at 20th Century Fox would have had a pretty strong case that DNA was nothing more than a Predator ripoff. The defense would probably claim that things like the Balakai’s heat vision and cloaking abilities were merely an homage to the Predator. The defense could have also cited the fact that 20th Century Fox had not gone after the dozens of Die Hard ripoffs that were out at this point, so why couldn’t they ripoff Predator if they wanted?!
DNA clearly doesn’t break any new ground, it was “Predator on a budget” all day long, but as a Mark Dacascos fan I could not help but enjoy this oddity in his filmography.
It would be odd for me not to include some Bonus Bullet Points, so here they are…
- Familiar Face: Roger Aaron Brown played Azenfeld, a member of Wessinger’s team who ends up getting the last laugh on his evil boss after being more than a little mistreated. I’ll always remember Brown from his work in Action Jackson and RoboCop 2.
- Not Surprised: While I can’t say that I noticed him while watching the movie, I was not shocked to see that Jim Gaines (credited as James Gaines Jr) played one of the mercenaries in the film given the fact that the movie was shot in the Philippines, where Jim Gaines reigns supreme.
- Directed By: DNA was the third and final film directed by William Mesa (at least up to this point). Mesa’s true calling in Hollywood is as a visual effects supervisor having worked on such films as Rambo III, Under Siege, Darkman and The Fugitive.
