Mario Van Peebles made his major screen debut in the inept sequel to THE EXTERMINATOR (the original being an all-time favorite from the Golden Days of 80s exploitation), but, he's done us and his father -- underground film god Melvin -- good in the past few years. There was the ass-kicking NEW JACK CITY (with Mario as the whitest black cop to ever wear a badge), POSSE (a black STAR WARS western), and PANTHER (which I haven't seen, but at least he kept the subject matter out of the hands of Spike Lee and Oliver Stone).

Originally slated as a Stallone project SOLO is a juvenile hybrid of TERMINATOR 2 and COMMANDO. While that might not seem too bad on the surface, SOLO doesn't have an original idea within 50 feet of its shooting script. It's like an "Idea Free Zone" was erected around the set, and anyone with a clever thought was taken out and forced to work for Cannon. I take that back, Cannon flicks are usually better than this.

SOLO's only moments of fun resulted from the line "killing innocent people makes Solo feel bad," delivered early on by the FDA (Future Dead of America) that programmed our ebony avenger. We spent the next 90 minutes liberally rewriting the line to suit our own amusement. "Continuing to watch SOLO makes Dan feel bad." "Losing two hours of his life makes Dan feel bad." You get the picture.

The evening's lone highlight came when I found $10 in the theater parking lot. Coupled with the free passes we used, I actually got paid minimum wage to watch SOLO!