Deep message or not, it’s brilliant in it’s combination of cartoonishly over the top acting and it’s horrific violence. Voorhoven used it to brilliant effect just like in Robocop and Total Recal.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned two other Schwartzenegarian classics:
Commando and True Lies. (although True Lies is arguably a spoof of the genre)
That’s not much of a bet. Anyone can do that. I have done it, albeit short movies, but since I made those for the price of a tape, it would only be a question of time and a few more tapes.
The Wikipedia entry reads “successful horror film”. The IMDb’s trivia entry reads “popular horror film”. This review says Hal Warren claimed he could make a movie “just as well as anybody in Hollywood”, which may be a claim of quality or not depending on your opinion of Hollywood.
This interview contains only the following tale from the film crew:
There’s no mention of a bet in the article.
Bet or not, Max Torque, your cite supports my contention that Hal Warren made the movie with serious intent.
“Serial Mom”
The Raven. Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and a young Jack Nicholson. Don’t tell me anyone took this seriously. Nicholson and Lorre were reportedly ad-libbing all the time, to the annoyance of Karloff.
I’ll third (fourth?) Big Trouble in Little China and add its sister flick “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension”
Personally, I love flicks where it’s clear that the actors are having a good time.
Hey, don’t be dissing Buckaroo, or it’s sister flick “Remo Williams, The Adventure Begins” (strangely titled, as it both began and ended with that film).
A short hijack on the subject of Buckaroo. From the commentary track, during the filming they kept getting notes from the studio suits. Things like, "Buckaroo can’t wear red glasses, heroes don’t wear red glasses. They made a deal that he would only be seen a limited number of times in the red framed glasses. It went on and on like this. Every day the suits would watch the dailies and come back with suggestions, but fewer and fewer.
In the movie there was a scene where they were sneaking into a lab and a watermelon was clamped into some kind of an industrial press. New Jersey asked Buckaroo about it, and Buckaroo said he’d tell him about it later. He never did, but when the suits didn’t comment about something as absurd as a watermelon in a press, the director realized that they had simply stopped paying attention, and he could do anything he wanted.
Well, I’d suggest Leonard part 6, the movie so good they skipped the first five! But I’m not entirely certain Bill Cosby was in on the joke.
My contribution would be Time Bandits, a movie written and directed by half of Monty Python with bit parts for the other members. Oh yeah, and Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall and Katherine Helmond (from Who’s the Boss). The reason this get my vote is because it’s not a comedy in the way of all the Monty Python movies were. There’s no absurdist conversations or jokes. It’s just flat out absurd. A group of midgets steal a map to interdimensional space from the Supreme Being, kidnap a boy through the walls of his bedroom, and go in search of riches while meeting Napolean, Robin Hood, and a minotaur? Come on. There’s not a person in this movie who took the movie seriously.
Absurd != stupid. (Although an absurdist film which takes itself seriously would probably suck.)
Here’s another one: Tango & Cash. Stupid, cliche, predictable movie…but the actors are clearly in on the joke. Which is evident from the moment Sylvester Stallone says, “Rambo is a pussy!” Or the big climactic scene, when the villain kidnaps the girl and hides in a maze of mirrors, so the heroes can’t tell which image is the real villain and which ones are reflections which is clearly stolen from some James Bond-type film…Goldfinger, was it? Doesn’t matter…the heroes aren’t fooled, because they saw that movie, too. 
I’d beg to differ. Take another Terry Gilliam film: Twelve Monkeys. Like most, if not all, Gilliam films, it’s quite absurdist in nature. I do, however, think it was trying to take itself seriously. It took completely absurd worlds but played them straight within the rules it had created. It never winked at the audience.
You’re right in that I wouldn’t necessarily consider absurd to be stupid. But, going back to the OP, isn’t a movie where Pee Wee Herman flies in on a surf board and Frankie Avalon signs an autograph while surfing the “humunga cowabunga from down unda” a tad on the absurdist side as well?
It’s so sad I remembered the name of the wave…
Late bump here, but in the same vein as “Mars Attacks!” I would have to nominate “Spaced Invaders.” This movie is a hoot! A rebroadcast of Orson Welles’ “War Of The Worlds” dramatization triggers a mistaken invasion of Earth by a squadron of Martians. Much hilarity ensues as one of them comes to the realization that it is only a radio broadcast and tries to get his comrades to call off the attack and return to the ship.
I actually enjoyed this movie, despite the cutesy-poo kids. I thought it was very under-rated.