For what it's worth, this THUNDER IN PARADISE pilot for the syndicated TV series (packaged on home video with music-videos patched together from that TV program) is marginally better than THUNDER IN PARADISE 2 and 3. Despite lukewarm attempts to grab adult attention, these flicks are aimed
squarely at the "peanut gallery."
In their patented mega-boat, Thunder, former Navy SEALS officers Hurricane Spencer (Hulk Hogan) and Bru (Chris Lemmon) do international good deeds such as reuniting a Cuban woman and her son with her activist husband in Florida. While Spencer faces foreclosure on his high-maintenance ship, his
contentious acquaintance Megan (Felicity Waterman) stands to lose her inherited hotel to her unscrupulous uncle, Edward Whitaker (Patrick Macnee), unless she weds within two days to fulfill the stipulation in her late father's will. Secretly attracted to Megan, deep-sea diver Spencer gives Megan's
daughter, Jessie (Robin Weisman), an odd, interlocking bracelet he retrieved from a shark's belly. The festivities following Megan's marriage of convenience to strapped-for-cash Spencer are interrupted by a soldier of fortune named Kilmer (Sam Jones), who covets Jessie's necklace. (The necklace
was designed by a convict as a treasure map.)
Although Megan, Bru, and Spencer discover the secret of the necklace, modern-day pirate Kilmer kidnaps Jessie and family friend Kelly (Carol Alt) and forces them to point out the buried fortune's location in Sarasota, Florida. There, Spencer, Bru, and Megan unearth the booty in a subterranean
cavern, but Kilmer steals the cache and seals up the cavern. Intrepidly swimming through underwater passageways, our heroes arrive back at Thunder just in time to save Jessie and Kelly, who've been forced to walk the plank. Kilmer launches a missile at Thunder, but Bru and Spencer outmaneuver the
charge, fooling the guided missile into blasting Kilmer's vessel instead. Even though the treasure is blasted to the ocean floor, Spencer and his pals are glad to be alive and solvent.
This bubble-gum diversion is a retro-'50s kiddie show propped up by some high-tech '90s hardware and Hulk Hogan's muscles. It is distressing--if increasingly unsurprising--to see a parade of bikini-clad bimbos jiggling through a film that claims to be wholesome family entertainment. There is also
a tasteless honeymoon sequence in which Spencer and his new bride are under video surveillance. But these are merely blips on a juvenile radar screen. For the most part, blandness and family values reign. Vaguely reminiscent of minor studio "buccaneer" films of the '50s, THUNDER IN PARADISE
features enough watery peril and exaggerated villainy to set younger kids squealing merrily. (Violence.)
