Orange You Glad You're Not Julius?

Yesterday I mentioned a few of the recreational activities available to the doomed teens about the cruise ship in "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan". One of them is a boxing match between Julius, who is fairly prominent in the film, and another student who is not. It's not a terrible moment in the movie, as I said before. There's some iffy stuff to it, but as far as first act scenes in the series go, it's a pretty good one that most of the other entries would benefit from having.

It of course has the effect of investing in Julius's character. We see that he is both physically formidable and confident. Of all the characters in the film, he is the one most likely to handle himself well in a physical confrontation- more than our male lead, who is all petulant and angsty, more than our cerebral and tortured female lead and more than any other student or member of the crew. Second place would probably go to his rival in the match. He has no rival for bravado.

Neither does he have a rival when it comes to sex appeal among the male cast. The match is watched by fellow students who are in the gym as well as by a pair of young women who have their own story line as heels. Their comments while watching establish that Julius is who the women want just as Julius' victory establish that he's who the men would want to be. I don't think any other character has as good an introduction or as well-developed a character, really.

Apart from the rare display of character development for Julius and the investment in a third act payoff, the scene provides some basic good action. The second and third acts will feature plenty of kills by Jason and freakouts by his prospective victims, but the first act can be slow and dull, so it's nice to have a little action that doubles as the things that the first act should be doing, and that's just what we have here. It might be my favorite scene in the movie.