Across the Internet, you’ll find reams of Simpsons scenes/concepts that appeared to predict the future. In one instance, viewers didn’t need to wait long to see a Simpsons bit come true.

Aired January 31, 1991, “The Way We Was” mostly offers a flashback to Homer and Marge in 1974. However, the “present day” scenes involve a promo for a fictional action film called McBain.

So imagine the surprise we Simpsons fans felt when late 1991 brought an actual live-action feature called McBain! Shot in late 1990, the identical titles existed as a pure coincidence – but it still seemed nutty to Simpsons viewers back then.

In Colombia, Roberto Santos (Chick Vennera) attempts to overthrow oppressive ruler President Bojorquez (Victor Argo). This fails and Santos ends up dead.

Desperate for payback, Santos’s sister Christina (Maria Conchita Alonso) recruits Bobby McBain (Christopher Walken), a soldier Roberto rescued during the Vietnam War. Eager to repay this debt, McBain assembles a team and heads to Colombia to take on the corrupt leadership.

Did the wacky coincidence mentioned earlier lead many Simpsons fans to see McBain theatrically? Not by a long shot, as the movie grossed a shockingly low $456,127 at the box office.

With a budget of $8 million, this made McBain a massive flop. While the Rainier Wolfcastle made umpteen McBain sequels on The Simpsons, Chris Walken stopped here.

And I can’t refer to this as a tragedy. Little more than a collection of leftover 1980s action movie clichés, McBain becomes a thorough dud.

On the surface, Walken feels like an odd fit for this kind of action hero. Beneath the surface, he seems like a bad choice too.

However, that doesn’t lead the movie to doom. Unusual casting choices can work – after all, Michael Keaton certainly didn’t hurt Batman in 1989.

But Walken just feels utterly unconvincing in the part. When we meet an emaciated McBain as a POW, he needs to take down a big, burly dude in a fight – and does so in the first of many unbelievable sequences we find here.

Walken comes with his own quirky charms, of course, so despite his miscasting, he adds some panache to the proceedings. However, he still remains wrong for the role and all the patented Walkem weirdness can’t overcome that.

Not that a more appropriate lead actor could save this mess. Shot in the Philippines to cut costs, McBain often looks like it cost 17 cents. Devoid of appealing production values, the movie feels amateurish and cheap.

And here’s a hint to aspiring filmmakers: Filipinos don’t look like Colombians. The vision of hundreds of Filipino extras in footage meant to take place in South America seems bizarre and distracting.

Writer/director James Glickenhaus didn’t enjoy much of a career in those roles, and McBain shows why. His sixth feature, this comes across as the product of an amateur.

Much of the issue stems from the woefully poor script, and since he wrote it, Glickenhaus can’t lay the blame elsewhere. Glickenhaus displays a terrible ear for dialogue, as he forces characters to speak in platitudes that never feel believable.

Even beyond these awful lines, McBain suffers from clunky exposition and development as well as problematic pacing. The movie flits about with only spurts of logic and fails to come together as a coherent piece.

Really, all Glickenhaus seems to want to do is offer a fairly standard issue Reagan-era fascist fantasy. Sure, the Gipper had been out of office a couple years when McBain hit screens, but the 1990s sense of irony hadn’t yet hit, so the film goes earnest in its approach to the subject matter.

Perhaps a better filmmaker could make this work, but Glickenhaus couldn’t. He sticks with cheap clichés and brings nothing creative or inventive to the table.

For more than 30 years, McBain remained in the memory bank due to the aforementioned crazy Simpsons coincidence. Now that I’ve finally seen it, I can realize how lucky I was to avoid it all this time. Do yourself a favor and skip this atrocious film.

McBain appears in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though not a bad image, the movie showed its age. Some of this came via sharpness, which tended to seem erratic. Much of the movie displayed fine delineation, but more than a few oddly soft shots popped up along the way.

Still, the film usually looked pretty tight, and I saw no signs of jagged edges, moiré effects or edge haloes. Print flaws also failed to create distractions outside of a couple small specks.

Colors went with a fairly natural palette and tended to become appealing. Some muddiness crept into the presentation at times, but I found that the hues mostly seemed pretty well-reproduced.

Blacks were fine – albeit occasionally a little crushed – and shadows were more than acceptable, as they usually delivered appropriate smoothness. While a little erratic, the image mostly satisfied.

Remixed from its theatrical 2.0 audio, the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of McBain became a mixed bag. Actually, given the prevalence of theatrical surround circa fall 1991 – with Dolby Digital due by the end of the year – I felt surprised to see the movie came with only a basic two-channel presentation.

The 2023 reworking of the audio opened up the sonic horizons but didn’t do so in a consistently satisfying manner. While some scenes used the five channels in a reasonably involving manner, the soundscape too often felt mushy.

This meant the various elements blended together without great localization and placement, issues that connected to the score as well. The music tended to spread across the front without great separation.

As such, the soundscape tended to feel like a sonic blob more than a well-spotted discrete track. Again, some scenes fared better than others, but the general impression of the soundfield lacked spatial balance and clarity.

Audio quality also seemed dated, though not bad. Speech could feel somewhat reedy but the lines remained intelligible and without overt issues.

Effects tended to seem a bit stiff, as the mix leaned toward a lot of midrange. These elements also suffered from iffy foley that made them sound awkward and somewhat unnatural.

Music also came without great range, though the score and songs remained free from distortion. I wouldn’t call the 5.1 remix a bad track, but it suffered from a combination of issues that made it mediocre even when I factored in the age of the source.

Speaking of which, the Blu-ray also came with the film’s original DTS-HD MA stereo track. Despite the loss of surround channels, it proved more satisfying – to a degree, at least.

The nature of the stems remained an issue, as speech continued to show some thickness, and we continued to hear clumsy foley.

Still, the score and songs felt livelier via the stereo track, and effects boasted greater range as well. Don’t expect a great mix, but the 1991 stereo felt like the best option.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we get an audio commentary from writer/director James Glickenhaus and film historian Chris Poggiali. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at story and characters, real-life influences, cast and performances, sets and locations, music, stunts, effects, and the movie’s release/reception.

With Poggiali along as moderator, Glickenhaus offers a pretty informative chat – for a while, that is. As the track progresses, though, it becomes less compelling.

Like many older filmmakers, Glickenhaus tends to obsess over the desire to remind that he shot his movie before the common usage of computer graphics, and he also goes on not-especially-useful tangents at times. There’s still enough useful material to make the commentary worth a listen, but expect diminishing returns as it goes.

Remembered mainly due a Simpsons related coincidence, McBain delivers a shockingly bad mix of drama and action. Miscast, awkward and silly, the movie flails at all times. The Blu-ray comes with generally decent picture, an awkward 5.1 remix and an audio commentary. Nothing about this flop works.