MacGyver: The TV Movies

Price: $13.28
(as of Sep 22,2024 02:17:56 UTC – Details)

Just as Monty Python and the Holy Grail made it difficult to ever again watch anything involving Camelot with a straight face, so, too, has SNL‘s MacGruber made it near impossible to keep a straight face as Richard Dean Anderson MacGyvers himself out of a life-threatening predicament using common objects such as a lighter or an improbably accessible tennis racket. This long-awaited single disc contains the two 1994 made-for-TV MacGyver movies previously only available as part of the pricey Complete Series set. While it’s fun to see the resourceful MacGyver back in action, series regulars Dana Eclar and Bruce McGill are sorely missed (even MacGyver’s iconic Swiss army knife has a limited role). Of the two films, Lost Treasure of Atlantis is the most fun, a cheerfully cheesy Indiana Jones-style romp in which MacGyver is paired with his former archaeology professor (an over-the-top Brian Blessed) to find the eponymous trove. This film is certainly at a disadvantage budget-wise, but the finale is no less wacky than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Trail to Doomsday is a somewhat darker affair that ups the dramatic stakes when a friend of MacGyver is assassinated and his daughter kidnapped. The climax is classic MacGruber–oops, I mean MacGyver–with our hero desperately racing the clock to defuse a nuclear bomb as an automated voice timer counts down the seconds to detonation. There are no extras, but having these two films is a nice bonus for fans of the series and one of television’s most offbeat action heroes. –Donald Liebenson