Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan: D-

Jesus, what a mountain of garbage. It has the special effects worse than a straight-to-DVD Nickelodeon feature and the acting is so overdone and pompous, it makes the crew from Alien Seed look like five star thespians. It’s got Grizz Adams, who somehow looks better than he did 20 years ago, and Joe Estevez, Charlie Sheen’s homeless looking (and probably homeless) uncle.

Grizz Adams and some other 19th century lumberjacks murder Babe the god-awful-looking-CGI-Blue-Ox, inciting the wrath of Paul Bunyan, who isn’t a giant lumberjack but rather, a developmentally challenged, murderous lumberjack. He kills everyone with his axe and feeds Grizz’s face to a giant table saw. Most of the gore is flamboyant CGI that explodes with the velocity of a cartoon.

Anyway, Paul Bunyan flees to the mountains where he inexplicably grows to 25 feet tall and enjoys apparent eternal life as a now cave troll looking Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers villain type of evil lumberjack. Joe Estevez tells you all this as the “wise elder” character while he pockets catering and prop bread from the set. Poor guy.

Now you have to believe some other crazy shit: The state has a new program for first offenders where they can forgo prison and instead, go to a summer/prison camp rehabilitation program run by a social worker who looks like she used to star in mom porn and a police sergeant who acts like someone’s mean stepdad. The felons have committed a range of crimes and they are all young and/or nubile chumps ready to be axed by PB. They get to bring their cell phones and roast marshmallows despite the fact that they have stolen millions of dollars or assaulted police officers.

Some “plot” rolls out and then the axing begins. Real unoriginal kills. One guy is chopped in half horizontally. Another character is chopped in half vertically. Heads are chopped off etc. There’s a car chase scene with some ugly special effects. Paul Bunyan chases a truck on foot, roaring and moaning like a mummy. He is either shown as a guy in a costume in front of a pathetically obvious green screen or some screen-saver looking CGI. I don’t know which was worse.

A militia of rednecks show up and save the day and they hit you with the credits before you have time to yawn again. Pretty funny to watch with friends. Pretty awful that it exists.