Schlep, the desolate little buggie that turns into superpowered
Wonderbug whenever need arises and evil needs to be fought, takes his
three teenaged passengers (David Levy, Carol Anne Seflinger, John-Anthony
Bailey) to a ghost town where they meet (and get scared away by) ... a
ghost? Of course, upon closer inspection, the ghost turns out to be not
a real ghost but a front put up by a couple of carthieves (though it's
never made quite clear how the ghost is operated). Now our heroic trio and
Schlep try to get back at the carthieves by dressing up as ghosts
themselves and scaring them shitless - which almost succeeds until a freak
desert wind blows their costumes away, and right into Schlep's signal
horn, so he can't transform into Wonderbug ... and suddenly our heroic
trio is on the run from the baddies - until Schlep's horn is cleared, upon
which the tables are turned, and in the end the baddies get their just
desserts ... Childish and cheaply made - that's the best way to
describe this: On one hand the whole thing is told in a much too
straight-forward fashion to really capture the imagination of anyone who's
age is in the double digits (though admittedly, that was probably not the
intention of the series to begin with), on the other hand, the effects
that could have made this one watchable actually are too cheaply and
sloppily achieved to really convince even less-than-jaded members of the
audience. Bit of a pity, even, because the film's basic idea sounds so
silly it could have been hilarious ...
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