I just can't stop laughing whenever I see this poster. Seriously, I defy you to find a picture of a man happier to be disarming and likely dismembering more dudes at once.

Donkey: It’s funny where you end up finding inspiration. The ravenous pack of regular visitors to this site – which has recently exploded from 2 or 3 all the way up to about 7 or 8, officially making us the Internet’s biggest sensation, at least until someone posts a new video of a kitten or dude getting hit in the balls on YouTube – will notice that it’s been a while since I’ve managed to share a new story of brain-raping splendor. I’m afraid that maintaining the aggressive writing schedule required by this site has become more and more of a challenge over time, especially as my attempts to avoid getting repetitive have started to make the once bountiful well of dick and fart jokes seem to dry up more and more each day. But just when I wondered if I could possibly go on, inspiration arrived in the form of a stern rebuke. I recently discovered that this site has been banned by a certain Christian web filtering application. And while some might consider falling into the cross-hairs of the Jesus Brigade to be detrimental to their continued work, I don’t think I could possibly find this fact any funnier. Someone actually thinking enough of this site to ban it is a real feather in my cap. Of course, some of you who are new to our exploits might be asking what I could have done to deserve this cybercock-blocking, and I have to say that I’m not entirely sure. Could it be that my infectious prose have caused hapless victims to be drawn to their computer at the expense of family, friends, and basic bodily functions? Possibly. Could it be because my promotion of the dong-punching glory that is JCVD could technically be considered a method of birth control that would offend Catholic sensibilities? Maybe. Or could it be because I’ve referred to all organized religions as nothing more than an Amway scheme with a far more obnoxious sales force? Probably. But regardless, thank you Christian blocking software; you’ve made my day.

So with the topic of inspiration in mind, let’s travel back once again to our favorite cinematic decade, to a time when action movies knew that awesomeness didn’t require things like a viable plot or even the slightest basis in reality, and witness the journey of a man who found the inspiration required to overcome his handicap to arbitrarily achieve true semi-greatness.

The Plot:

Donkey: Have you ever wondered what a movie would be like if it starred the butt-baby spawned from a torrid love affair between The Hulk and Daredevil as he teamed up with a kid whose antics haven’t been fresh since Problem Child while concurrently battling a villain so remarkably non-threatening that you could just as easily picture him selling you life insurance or a 1995 Chrysler Dynasty? Yeah, me neither. But feel free to read on and discover the magic that absolutely no one asked for.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: Sharp Killing Instruments – Basic Vision Or Language Skills = Negative Fun!

Just pray that this is the only time that the villagers are going to want to play "Smell My Snake", Rutger.

Donkey: Like so many of the stories that your grandfather spouts out to support his endless case that you’re a soft-lipped pussy just because you’ve never been face down in thick jungle brush, ducking below an intense firefight between Charlie and Uncle Sam while grunting your way through the intense firefight of syphilis in your trousers resulting from standing fourth in line for a three dollar hooker, this week’s tale begins in the magical place we call ‘Nam. That’s right, it’s time once again to visit the even lighter side of a national tragedy where we pass through a haze of wonder, dreams, and needless human suffering to meet the film’s hero played by the illustrious Rutger Hauer. As a US soldier whom is unknowingly taking his first steps onto the path of an epic journey, Rutger enters the movie crawling away from the smoking rubble of a fierce battle where he was struck blind. Frightened, alone, and undoubtedly farming a particularly potent swamp-water dong-fungus, his darkest day imaginable – pun intended – suddenly gets much worse when he’s caught in a net Chewbacca-style and taken to a nearby village of what I have to assume are blood-thirsty local peasants. However, instead of taking this foreign enemy hostage to create a rudimentary sperm bank in his lower colon or possibly serve his internal organs on a bed of rice pilaf, these simple villagers instead decide to act as angels of mercy. So with absolutely no explanation as to why they would bother, the movie jumps straight into one of sweet, buttery Jesus’ greatest gifts to humankind: the montage. And we’re not talking some syrupy bullshit trying to touch our hearts and our bathing suit areas with random images of Rutger’s plucky resilience and indomitable spirit in learning to live with his new handicap. No, Rutger’s even more ridiculous recovery includes learning the magical art of Jit-Kun-I’m-Going-To-Stab-You-In-The-Face-With-My-Sword-Do. But how exactly does a newly stricken blind man without the Vietnamese language skills necessary to process the most basic instructions manage to train with a fucking sword, you ask? It’s quite simple, actually. He achieves this feat merely by hugging a little old man while that dude practices a few solitary katas. Yep, it’s just that easy.

Whoa! Hey dude, that's not what I meant when I said, "put the sword in its sheath"!

So in the time it takes him to grow a glorious ponytail, Rutger learns to master blind sword work, developing skills so sophisticated that he can slice through coconuts being thrown past his face. Fuck, we’re off to a good start. I can’t wait until he decides to go out for his fighter pilot’s license after spending a couple of hours dry humping an 8 year old kid playing After Burner.

Exhibit B: Take My Wife Please! Oh Wait…She’s Dead.

So tell me...are you ever going to split kings again, motherfucker? Didn't think so.

With our hero’s vague introduction complete, the film says fuck it and decides to get right to brass tacks by jumping ahead 20 years, completely ignoring the question of how a blind American would manage to survive the last two decades tripping around a Vietnamese jungle after practicing little more than a complicated regiment of coconut slashing/dude fondling. Instead we rejoin Rutger on his path of glory just in time to discover that he has returned home to the United States. Naturally we began to speculate that he’s been drawn back to the land of Big Macs and even bigger asses to witness all the miraculous fads that the 80′s has to offer: the timeless musical juggernaut that is Wang Chung, the taste bud molestation of New Coke, or even the elusive “computer” fad undoubtedly destined to fade into nerd obscurity next to Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. But instead we eventually discover that he’s actually returned to find an old war buddy named Frank Devereaux. Little does our hero know, however, that Frank is actually in Reno at the time, being hung off the roof of a casino. But before you wonder if he’s turned his post-war-stress disorder into a shitty David Blaine performance art, I should specify that he’s not there by choice. Frank’s being hung over the side by the casino’s owner, whom we’ll call Hamshank MacCready, and a cadre of hired thugs led by Randall Tex Cobb, otherwise known as the biker from Raising Arizona whose performance achieved a 9.5 on the “Mickey Rourke Scale of Greasy Douche Bags”. Apparently Frank is a chemist with a gambling problem, and rather than have his legs broken or even his feelings hurt through a series of stinging personal observations, Hamshank MacCready has instead decided to call in Frank’s debts by forcing him to become the chemist solely responsible for his designer drug-manufacturing/amateur horse-porn web hosting business.

Careful, Rutger. She's totally fucked over He-Man and Rowdy Roddy Piper. You don't stand a chance.

Blind to the fate of his sought after friend, not to mention oncoming traffic and the sacred art of mime, Rutger begins his journey strolling along the side of a Florida highway where he’s forced to overcome obstacles that are both increasingly dangerous and exponentially asstastic enough in nature to fittingly represent a state with the collective intellectual capacity to be thoroughly crushed and defeated by the veritable minefield of human comprehension that is voting: a discarded Coke can, a pile of dog shit, a live goddamn alligator, and finally a group of local punks in a bar who perform a duet of offenses in harassing a young girl and gleefully spiking Rutger’s burrito with a metric ton of hot sauce. And while litter, deadly free roaming wildlife, and pestering the handicapped are all things that Rutger can apparently abide, playing keep away with a young girl’s purse apparently earns you a first class ticket on the Beating Express. While inexplicably taking the time to make it look accidental, Rutger uses his trusty Cane-Sword (which is infinitely less fuck-headed than Final Fantasy VIII’s Gunblade, just for the record) to teach the punks a lesson in manners that concludes in a final exam involving unconsciousness. But once these minor annoyances are behind him, Rutger finally arrives at his destination, the Devereaux household, where he ascertains that Frank is divorced and has long since moved to Reno, abandoning his wife played by – well goddamn it – Evil Lyn from Masters of the Universe. Jesus, between that and They Live, we can’t get away from this woman lately.

Sorry about the cigar ma'am, but it's the only thing that can cover the smell of flame-broiled garbage.

But just before Rutger can seize the opportunity to see if he can smooth talk his way into a fabled “soccer mom blowjob”, two cops show up at the front door a few minutes behind him accompanied by our old pal Randall Tex Cobb, asking to see Frank and Evil Lyn’s son, Billy. Tex claims to be some kind of inspector, which is goddamn retarded because even if we hadn’t already seen that he’s actually a goon working for MacCready, this guise still wouldn’t be remotely believable to anyone unless he was a water inspector sent to preach the virtues of conservation via skipping all forms of bathing. Seriously, this guy posing as a cop would still be insulting to officers working undercover at a fucking sewage treatment plant. Having obviously been sent to kidnap Billy and ensure Frank’s continued cooperation, the thugs immediately drop their pleasant facade the moment that Billy steps into the room, opting in favor of the more elegant tactic of grabbing the kid while blowing Evil Lyn away with a shotgun. Things look grim for our blind hero, but thankfully two decades of training have elevated his level of lethality to a few steps above the average housewife, so Rutger doesn’t go down quite as easily. With only a few deft movements of his Cane-Sword, Rutger relieves one cop of the burden of having a right hand and splits the other straight down the sternum, leaving Tex to wisely haul ass straight through the living room window in a desperate panic to get away. With the danger seemingly gone, Evil Lyn uses her dying breaths to demand that Rutger – a complete stranger – swear that he’ll look after Billy. I realize that she’s dying and all, but this seems a little quick to be that trusting. He could be a blood thirsty pedophile for all she knows. Maybe just ask him to look after the kid until the real cops show up? Regardless, Rutger agrees to her plea and after waiting for the life to seep out of her, he takes a moment to close her eyes by brushing his hand over her face lightly, even though we can clearly see that she closed her eyes before his fingers crossed over her eyes.

Unless your hand smelling like ball-sweat magically causes eyes to close, that's not even close.

Exhibit C: Need A Cure For Those Blues, Kid? How About Some Depressingly Bad Comedy?

Next up on our hero’s journey is a cross-country bus ride to Reno with his new dependent in tow, and as we all know from watching Over The Top, any time a burly hero and brat kid whose shrill voice is practically begging for a brick to the face get together for a long road trip, wacky hi-jinx coupled with shallow attempts to be more touching than a drunken uncle are assured. The first part of that equation comes when the bus stops to gas up at some shithole in the middle of nowhere, giving our heroes the chance to stretch their legs and comedic chops simultaneously. First they exchange heartfelt mocking laughter at each others’ expense after taking turns slipping and wiping out in the mud. But the fun doesn’t stop there as soon after Billy hands Rutger a rock in the guise of candy. Candy that has a both that taste and nutritional value of a hobo’s asshole, I’m guessing. But our blind hero happily plays along, biting down and making an exaggeratedly pained face before spitting the rock out and nailing the kid right in the forehead. If you’re not laughing by now, take heart: that just means that you’ve managed to avoid the fiery depths of comedy hell. This schtick is so goddamn old that a pie fight or series of banana peel related mishaps honestly wouldn’t seem the slightest bit out of place.

Alright, I'll begrudgingly admit that the only way to make a spit-take funny is by ending it with a kid getting nailed in the head.

But with that crushing hilarity threatening to kill us all, the movie then grants a small reprieve by switching to tender mode. After the pair returns to their bus, Billy’s snooping through Rutger’s wallet yields a picture of him and Frank together in ‘Nam prompting Rutger to regale the boy with the story of how he lost of sight. Through a quick flashback, Rutger reveals that he and Frank were the best of friends back in their war days, but that all changed one night when their base got hit with a mortar attack. Sent out to crawl through the jungle brush and flank their attackers while the rest of the platoon tried to defend their post, he and Frank managed to successfully locate the enemy, only for Frank to run like a pussy the moment they were met with resistance. Left behind to be hit by an explosion, Rutger was left blind while Frank managed to get away completely unaffected, save the terminal damage inflicted upon their torrid bromance. What a great story. Basically your dad’s a treacherous coward that left me scarred for life, kid. Suck on that.

Am I the only one who questions the authenticity of any photo supposedly taken in Vietnam where people have smiles that fucking big?

The bus continues its apparent tour of unremarkable hellholes, stopping at another shithole in the middle of nowhere where emotions continue to flow like bad mayonnaise out of an explosive colon. Billy tries to make a collect call home to his mother, only to have Rutger hang up the phone and finally explain that his mom didn’t stay behind because she was too busy plotting new methods of retrieving the Cosmic Key from He-Man, but that she actually bit the big one. At least that’s what I presume that’s what he’s telling Billy, as this is performed in a pull away shot for dramatic effect while all dialogue is drowned out by music so sappy that I could smother my waffles in it, but for all we know Rutger just told him that his mother is busy starring in a German fetish porn film featuring 3 midgets and a particularly determined dog. And midget-themed beastiality might actually be closer to the truth than I would have guessed judging by Billy’s reaction, as he freaks out at the news he’s given and runs across the highway into a corn field. But it’s not only Rutger that chases after him, as we see that a truck of fully armed hillbillies are quickly following behind. And things just go from bad to worse when Billy runs headlong into the familiar face of our old comrade, Tex. Of course, blocking the kid’s flight that quickly means that Tex either watched where Billy entered the corn field and moved at superhuman speeds to get around him because he is, in fact, the Flash, or he was already in the goddamn field just hanging out. Both explanations are equally ass-hatted, and yet somehow equally appropriate.

If this is the face of your enemy, you don't need to be a martial artist to survive. Hell, you barely need to be a sandwich artist.

Regardless, Tex is well aware that Rutger is following along behind and is prepared for his blind nemesis this time. He locks Billy in an abandoned shack in the middle of the field and sits waiting on its roof with a rifle. But at the same time Rutger begins to realize the danger he’s in, sensing the gaggle of rednecks slowly surrounding him. In response he switches to stealth mode and slowly begins to stalk his way through the thick natural cover to take out the well-armed hillbillies one by one. It sounds straight forward enough, but just to give you an idea of the stupidity we’re dealing with, this pack includes a dude named Popcorn who, get this, is eating popcorn at the time. Genius, I know. That kind of brilliance just earned this movie a scratch-n-sniff sticker simply called “Dick Cheese”. And after killing them all one by one, Rutger has only one nemesis left to dispense, so he brings the ordeal to a close by distracting Tex with a scarecrow while he runs up and – no shit – brings the entire goddamn shed collapsing down underneath the greasy thug with a single slice of his sword to the only support post in sight. Of course, I hate to be a killjoy here but beyond the amazingly idiotic suggestion that anyone would build a four-walled structure that’s held up by a single support beam, the movie seems to be forgetting that Billy’s still inside the goddamn thing. No worries though, as after giving Tex a good slice across the chest, Rutger extracts Billy from the rubble, completely unharmed, and flees the scene as fast as possible. And just to make the whole thing that much more pointless, our villainous oil slick wakes up after they’ve left to reveal that he has survived via a Kevlar vest under his shirt, all while giggling his ass off in as evil a voice as one can muster after being spanked twice by a blind man who bested your gun with a fucking sword. Kudos, dicktip.

Billy would go on to explain this experience later in life to be "kind of like the crushing disappointment of discovering there is no Santa Clause...only with more broken bones involved."

Exhibit D: You Could Find Better Villains At A Kitten Lovers Convention

Taking a brief interlude from the thrills of child neglecting action, our attention is turned a back to Reno for a very modest amount of plot development. Our evil antagonist Hamshank MacCready reveals the motivations behind his villainy, whining to his casino manager and right hand man, Ed, that the bank is going to foreclose on him unless he can come up with a large sum of money in two days, forcing him to turn to illegal narcotics manufacturing. Are you fucking kidding me? He owns a goddamn casino, which last I checked, is one of the few businesses that almost never has a cash-flow problem. He’s not the Assistant Night Shift Manager of a fucking Taco Bell, struggling to find a way to pay off a debt while making $6.50 an hour. Ed assures MacCready that their plans are in motion, but having apparently gotten word of Tex’s repeated failures, stipulates that “the blind man is complicating things”. Clearly a master of shrewd and cunning calculation, MacCready immediately demands that Ed do whatever he has to, including procuring the services of Bruce Lee. When Ed quietly explains that Bruce Lee is dead, MacCready rants on undeterred, demanding that if that’s the case then Ed should instead find Bruce Lee’s brother. So just when we thought that the movie couldn’t lose any more of it’s momentum, it becomes clear that its primary villain is not only motivated by the same kind of dilemna that a blue-collar factory worker would face, but that he’s also brain dead enough to be comprehensively demolished by a paint-by-numbers exercise. Did Bruce Lee even have a brother? And if he did, why the fuck would that mean that he knows anything about martial arts? After all, I’m no J.D. Salinger over here, but one of my brothers is barely literate enough to write any more than his name on a cocktail napkin while the other is more likely to eat that same napkin while shitting his pants.

Exhibit E: At This Point I’d Rather Be On A Roadtrip With Fran Drescher, Rosie Perez, And The Rotting Corpse Of Mickey Rooney

Shitty character development isn’t limited to the criminally stupid, however, as we return to our heroes as they hunker down by their campfire for a night of sharing, feelings, and possible casserole recipes or some other equivalently fruity bullshit. And much like an evening with a Viagra-chugging elderly man, the disgusting attempts at intimacy can’t end fast enough when Billy begins to blubber about his father not really wanting him (what gave you the first fucking clue kid…the fact that he moved across the country or the fact that you haven’t heard from him since?). Rutger tries to reassure the boy that he’s not a complete pussy by dropping a small but important fact about himself, saying that he wishes that he could join in for a good cry but that the same accident that robbed him of his sight also took his ability to cry. Of course that’s just a cover story, since any real man knows that crying is simply unacceptable unless you pass out just moments before the threesome was about to start or you’re watching Artex sink into the Swamp of Sadness in The Neverending Story. That’s right, ladies. We’re not made of stone. But anyways, Rutger concludes that he would be proud to have a son like Billy himself, which both gets the kid to stop acting like such a goddamn skirt while also showing how low Rutger’s standards apparently are. The next morning they wake up and hitchhike to Reno where their journey finally comes to an end in the only way we could possibly imagine…catastrophic failure. They manage to meet with Annie, Frank’s cocktail waitress girlfriend. But just before Billy can create a truly awkward moment by claiming that his mother was still breastfeeding him at 10 and demand that Annie step up to the plate if she’s going to be his new mommy, the heroes are ambushed by a pair of brothers belonging to Tex’s hillbilly goon militia.

If Rutger could see that dude wearing a sleaveless cowboy shirt, he'd agree that sometimes it's better to be blind.

Things might seem grim for Rutger and Billy as they are tossed into the back of a panel van for express delivery to MacCready after mandatory banjo solos and oral molestation, natch. But as we’ve seen time and time again, if there’s one opponent that can be easily disposed of by a blind man, it’s fucking chowderheads, and luckily this movie has them in spades. So while the Dim-witted Duo manage to burn their way through their bonds by means of a lighter that Billy finds after fumbling through Rutger’s pocket along side an accidental hand-job, their captors manage to miss this slow and remarkably obvious Houdini routine by occupying themselves within preschool shenanigans. But their uncontrollable giggling soon ends when one brother manages to cut himself on Rutger’s Cane-Sword by running his finger over the blade, apparently having been too busy corn-holing his brother – whom I’m fairly certain from the looks of it might also be his father – to learn that swords are sharp, and after tossing the weapon out the van’s window just to show that inanimate object who’s the boss (NOTE: it’s Tony Danza), it’s right about then that the hillbillies finally notice that there’s a fire raging behind them. Basic logic dictates that the best course of action would be to get out and wait for the world’s worst tag team duo to either burn to death inside or pop their heads out just in time to be served a 22 caliber sandwich, but instead the rednecks decide to pull over and investigate face-first. So naturally they open the back doors with the kind of hushed anticipation you rarely see outside of a 16 year old about to lose his virginity, only to get similarly fucked by Rutger’s flying fists. Wasting no time our heroes join Annie in the front of the van (which happens to not be on fire at this point for reasons I’ll never know) and take off back in the direction from which they came, stopping along the way to find Rutger’s discarded Cane-Sword which they locate using a ridiculous counting method that both is both poorly executed and exceptionally ineffectual. And they find it with not a moment to lose, as the two tenacious hillbillies brothers show up just then in carjacked vehicle of their own, looking for gingivitis-fueled revenge. This, however, is where things go from dumb to Fox News commentator shit-headed. As they scramble to jump back in the van and take off again, Annie’s glasses end up being trampled. So in a stroke of genius, rather than electing to have the person who’s almost blind drive, the team instead elects to have the person who is actually blind do the driving. Because that makes fucking sense. Goddamn it man, I can’t land this plane with my arm broken like this! Quick, strap the corpse into my seat and let’s see what it can do! Then in what may be one of the most ridiculous chase scenes ever unleashed upon humankind, Rutger pilots the van through downtown traffic using navigational directions that Billy screams out with such stunning clarity that he might as well be reciting the digits in Pi with a mouthful of howler monkeys, all while the gunfire of the pursuing hillbillies is drowned out by the sound of Rutger giggling like a madman. This is equal parts preposterous and absolute tedium until finally the madness comes to an end when the pursuing goons end up flipping their car and our heroes come to a screeching stop within mere inches of a brick wall.

I couldn't sum up this scene better than by simply pointing out that not one of them is actually looking where they're going.

Exhibit F: Loose Slots, Bad Craps, Glorious Mullets…The Recipe Ultimate Recipe For Cinematic Glory Or An 80′s Fetish Porn

Fair warning, ladies: the mere sight of these sweet Kentucky Waterfalls is responsible for more wet panties than a bladder control problem.

After finally making it to a safehouse, or a safetrailer such as it is, Rutger leaves Billy in the hands of Annie and another completely unknown woman while he commences Operation: Rescue-Frank-From-Drug-Casino-Go-Kicky-Fast-POW! The mission, of course, will require the right combination of idiotic decisions and inexplicably stupid events to be executed up to this movie’s standards, and things start off nicely when Rutger arrives in the casino to find MacCready wandering around the gaming floor, talking to his mini-boss Ed about Frank and their need to get their hands on his kid. I would point out how stunningly dick-faced it is to talk about your evil plans while wandering through the general public in your own establishment, but when you’re a “villain” motivated by nothing more than a questionable credit history, this is probably about what we should expect and just be thankful that he’s not shitting his pants as he’s talking. Hamshank conveniently goes on to explain that he figures that Frank will have made enough of the drugs by the end of the night that they can sell the product, get the money that the bank needs, and find a new chemist that is more cooperative, thus making Frank completely disposable. And once they’ve given Rutger nearly all the information he needs, the two men conveniently retire behind the protection of two body guards both sporting incredibly glorious mullets that I’m beginning to believe people in the 80′s thought had a direct link with how much ass you could kick.

Dude with a sword? Whatever. A casino is stacking the odds against me? Fuck, it's go time.

With almost all the information he needs and almost no time to lose, Rutger makes his way over to the roulette wheel to create the mandatory diversion required to cover his assault. After a few minutes of ridiculously successful play, Rutger amasses a large stack of chips for reasons that I would love to have explained to me before, prompting the casino staff to finally take notice of his hot streak and decide to make a change. And they don’t fuck around, as a new dealer comes out with the two glorious “business in the front, party in the back” bodyguards and switches the roulette ball for one that we can see is secretly radio controlled. After the new dealer gives the wheel a spin, he quite obviously uses his radio control to make the ball move at the last second, resulting in a loss of all Rutger’s winnings. But since the radio signal was easily picked up by his inexplicably superhuman hearing, Rutger knows immediately that he’s been cheated and jumps into action, slicing open the dealer’s vest pocket and flipping the roulette wheel with his Cane-Sword, revealing the corresponding radio devices in both. Here’s where the sheer genius of the scene comes, though: instead of being the slightest bit bothered or distracted by the fact that some strange dude just finished wildly swinging a fucking sword in a casino, the other customers surrounding them instead realize that the house is cheating and almost instantaneously start a fucking riot. This of course gives Rutger the chance he needs to sneak away to executive elevator that MacCready and Ed used earlier, getting on board just as the mullet-glad guards and freshly arrived hillbilly brothers finally make their way through the crowd and move to stop him. When his musak-fueled ride to the top finishes, Rutger easily disposes of two more huge black bodyguards with Uzis, and then stalls the impending reinforcements by cutting the panel off of the elevator call button panel and ramming his sword into it, which shorts out the system miraculously without causing him to be electrocuted.

Having successfully made it past a crack security squad that would keep all but the cleverest of preschoolers out, Rutger storms into Ed’s office for a deadly confrontation. But when his presence is greeted with a simple “fuck off”, Rutger realizes that he has to kick it up a notch. With only a single backhanded swing of his Cane-Sword, he takes the eyebrows right off his opponent’s face. And yet unlike us, who burst out into laughter at how clearly far away the sword swing was from his target’s face, Ed is actually scared shitless by Rutger’s physically impossible attack, prompting him to reveal that Frank is in a room across the hall while handing over the room key. After issuing the universally accepted action hero method of showing appreciation, wherein Rutger knocks Ed the fuck out, he makes his way across the hall and has an awkward, pseudo-emotional reunion with his old war buddy. At long last we’re finally ready to move on to the final step in Operation: Rescue-Frank-From-Drug-Casino-Go-Kicky-Fast-POW!, which is quite simply to run like hell. But before they go, Frank decides to create a distraction of his own after he grabs the bright blue drugs that he has just created, or what I think are supposed to be drugs – either that or Fun Dip – by setting the lab on fire. The veterans then escape down a stairwell just after the mullet/hillbilly combination arrives on the scene, with Rutger covering their tracks by cutting off the stairwell’s doorknob with a crushingly awkward swing.

This horizontal backslash has about the same likelihood of successfully trimming his eyebrows as a drunken amputee with a weed whacker.

Exhibit G: The Ultimate Battle For The Prize No One Wanted

Once the newly reunited war buddies arrive back at the safetrailer, having likely spent a long cab ride tip-toeing around whether or not to that night of daiquiris and rim-jobs lo those many years ago, they discover that things haven’t quite gone as planned. After finding the random chick who owned the trailer dead, they get a timely call from MacCready himself, informing Frank that he’s holding Billy and Annie up at his ski lodge. MacCready warns that he had better come meet him there with “the stuff” by dawn or he might lost both his casual girlfriend and the dependent that he really didn’t seem to want in the first place in one fell swoop. Does no one else see the problem with this? Seriously?

This couldn't be a more obvious time to hit them if Rutger was hanging out the windows screaming about the last time he banged the hillbillies' moms.

So, as predictable as the rampant ass-widening, childhood diabetes that KFC’s Double Down sandwich is sure to deliver, we arrive at the typical action movie “final battle”. And as much as we might be hoping that they instead say fuck it and head to a titty bar, the Super Friends rise to the challenge and journey to the ski lodge of doom to meet their fate. Of course that titty bar starts to look a like a significantly less idiotic option when compared to their actual approach: the path up to the lodge consists of a very long and exceptionally vulnerable ride on a gondola. But all is not lost, considering their rivals in this picture were drawn from a genetic wading pool. As such, MacCready’s hillbilly brigade is naturally ready and waiting to strike, but instead of hitting their prey while they’re dangling precariously above a fucking mountain, they choose to wait for the war buddies finish their slow moving ride, conveniently allowing Frank to pass the time by preparing for the coming battle by mixing some homemade explosives. Once the gondola finally arrives in the ski lodge’s station, Tex and his gaggle of well-armed thugs finally open fire, blasting the shit out of the car as it comes to a rest. But of course when they go inside to collect what they presume are going to be two corpses/tomorrow night’s dinner, they instead find that the car is empty as a result of the Super Friends managing to sneak out of a hatch in the floor. It’s nice to see that this battle has just begun and it’s already goddamn tiresome.

Now that they’ve successfully slipped into the impenetrable fortress of death and family leisure, Frank and Rutger begin running through darkened hallways with no discernible plan whatsoever until they eventually run into familiar foes in the form of the two hillbilly brothers. But with no sodolicioius panel vans to be seen, the brothers find themselves at a disadvantage. Rutger gets the drop on one of them and puts his sword across the brother’s mouth, using him as a human shield while the other one begins to go right ahead and fire anyways. As you can imagine, this idiocy inevitably leads to the one brother shooting his human pinata kin in the chest. Go fucking figure. But not to be outdone, the newly perforated sibling looks back indignantly before pulling out a gun of his own and returning the favor, shooting the other brother. So yeah, they’re both dead. Thank God. But the fighting for our heroes has just begun as the rest of Tex’s horde catches up to the Super Friends moments later and attempts to give them a led-flavored greeting. Together under fire once again all these years later, Frank finally comes face to face with an opportunity to redeem himself…only to once again show his true colors by running like a bitch and leaving Rutger to die alone. But after suffering through a series of painful flashbacks, Rutger manages to pull himself together enough to escape out of the hallway and scramble into a large theater room. The reprieve is short lived, though, as within moments the hillbilly pose floods in behind him and surrounds Rutger. And with their prey finally at their mercy, after having him hand their asses to them repeatedly up to this point, the gang of thugs naturally decides that the best course of action is to stop and take 20 fucking minutes to cock and prep their guns for what they’re assuming is the inevitable execution. But at the last moment, Frank reappears and finally redeems himself by…shutting off the rooms’ lights. Hmmm…leaving him to die twice VS flicking off a goddamn light switch? Yep, consider that debt repaid in full. Realizing that the ring of morons surrounding him with guns has been suddenly cast into darkness, Rutger makes probably the most intelligent decision in the movie thus far and simply ducks, leaving the retarded bumpkins to fire on each other, killing several of their companions before finally stopping. Confused and terrified in the darkness, the supposedly hardcore thugs stand around more stunned than a teenage girl at Justin Timberlake concert, just pointing their guns at nothing and waiting for the inevitable. And of course, Rutger calmly obliges them, weaving his way through the darkness and cutting them down with ease. The best part of this scene is that the hillbillies are acting like the room is pitch black, and yet there is very clearly a significant amount of light pouring in from doorways around the room’s perimeter. I know that filming in absolute darkness can’t be easy, but really? This is supposed to be pitch black and we can’t do any better than sexy mood lighting?

Holy shit...it's so dark that I totally can't see the things that are clearly illuminated around me.

After killing idiot rednecks in the not-quite-darkness, the final confrontation continues when Rutger and Frank finally make it up to the pinnacle of the lodge where they find a highly irritable MacCready and his hostages. After storming in and going through the obligatory exercise of surrendering their guns and the load of stolen drugs, the main event finally begins. Seeing as this is an 80′s action movie, you don’t need me to reassure you that this clash will be truly epic, but I don’t think anyone could possibly be prepared for the moment that a random Asian dude walks into the room with a sword to face off against Rutger. You heard me. Apparently when MacCready demanded Bruce Lee’s brother, he wasn’t fucking around. So I’m not sure if this is supposed to actually be the long lost brother or just some random Asian guy that MacCready snagged from a neighborhood mall after assuming that he knew martial arts solely because he was Asian, but we’ll assume the former and just call this dude Chad Lee. Rutger obliges his challenge of course, and a sweet sword fight ensues which is in no way completely deflated by the obvious method of speeding up the film to make it look more intense. Eventually Rutger and Chad Lee end up fighting on the edge of a hot tub that has a random severed electrical floating around in it. Figuring that it might somehow make for the most ultimate attack of awesomeness ever to blow its load into human eyes, Chad Lee decides that it would be sheer brilliance to combine swinging on a rope trapeze contraption that just happens to be hanging over the hot tub for no conceivable reason with his final slashing sword attack. And as anyone with more brain functionality than a particularly dim-witted carrot might assume, Rutger’s response is to merely duck and cut the rope, dropping Chad Lee into the electrocuting hot tub. No shit.

This is totally the best idea I've ever had...whoa...SHIT!

But just when we think this grand struggle can’t get any better, it ushers in one the dumbest fucking endings you can imagine, short of involving a boxing kangaroo with a foot fetish. After Rutger finishes reliving the glory of his ‘Nam days by killing an Asian for the first time in 20 years, Tex walks in and wastes another clear shot at Rutger by hitting him square in the arm. To his credit, Rutger manages to keep his head and issues a swift response in the form of a thrown sword directly into his opponent’s gut. With a grimace of pain, Tex rips out and discards the sword before falling to the ground and crawling for the gun that he had carelessly dropped. And with this brief pause in the action, Billy leaps on the chance to make a dash for the Cane-Sword, heroically tossing it to Rutger only to watch him bobble the catch and send the weapon plummeting into the electrocuting hot tub of death. This was so careless that you’d almost think he was – oh I don’t know – a fucking blind man. But as Tex continues crawling towards the gun slowly, Rutger comes up with Plan B and grabs Chad Lee’s sword instead. With one last dramatic slow motion shot, Rutger runs up just as Tex reaches his gun and hits him with a massive slash before he can get a shot off. And while that sounds great, it gets even better when the greasy turd rockets backward out of a window only to fall down a massive fucking cliff, splitting in half as he falls and making him look a lot like Darth fucking Maul if the Sith lord happened to have an aversion to bathing. Just as a side note, while all this is going on, Frank wrestles with MacCready for control of a gun, but that struggle is never actually resolved on camera. So we don’t see Frank actually disarm and subdue MacCready, so who knows what the fuck happens there. I guess it doesn’t matter at this point.

I can hear Schwarzenegger shouting in the distance: "Hey Tex, time to split!"

Exhibit H: Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Wanna Settle Down

Now that our improbable journey has come to an end, it’s time to match its meandering, arbitrary splendor with an equally mind-numbing epilogue, and it just kind of writes itself when you stop to think about it. With an absentee father, his trashy girlfriend, an obnoxious kid, and a blind lethal weapon left to their own devices, they naturally decide to pile onto a bus and start a new life in San Fransisco, on the verge of possibly creating one of the dumbest fucking sit-coms the world has seen since Full House. But at the last moment, Rutger manages to muster a shred of common sense and tosses away his bus ticket. And while his new parents board the bus just ahead of him, Billy takes notice of Rutger’s swift escape, chasing after him while crying about how much he needs either him or possibly the smell of soiled panties to get him going in the morning. I’m not really sure as we stopped paying attention about 20 minutes ago. Giving the little ankle biter one last hug, Rutger tells Billy that he’s quite fond of his asinine existence but that he must go back to his father. To then punctuate exactly how much he doesn’t want to be around the kid anymore, Rutger gets up and wanders through traffic before eventually disappearing behind a passing bus. Yet again, that’s pretty goddamn impressive for a blind man. Not ready to give up, Billy starts running like a lunatic in the direction that he guesses that Rutger went, screaming for the blind man to come back while his his newly adopted parents prove exactly how much they love him by not bothering to even get off the bus to see where the hell he is. Eventually Billy stops at a bridge where he cries out to Rutger, exclaiming that he hates him. But just as Billy stands blubbering, his bus suddenly pulls up and Franks jumps out to retrieve him, begging the question how did this fucking bus know where to go to find him and why did the driver agree to go chasing after him in the first place? But even more importantly, can we possibly top this bullshit? Yes. Yes we can.

It's a common misconception to think that he's crying over Billy, but it's actually over the fashion catastrophe that is those goddamn glasses.

The final groan worthy moment of excellence comes as Rutger walks out from under the bridge where Billy gave his emotional farewell, very obviously crying. This suggests that either he was lying to Billy earlier when he said that he couldn’t cry or the love of an exceptionally annoying child suddenly managed to fix an actual medical problem. Either way is equally idiotic, so who gives a shit. But with that, the movie finally ends with Rutger hitchhiking as he wanders away down a highway, beginning what is assured to be yet another epic journey. Is this the setup for a sequel? Will he see our wandering hero once again slashing his way through both the criminal underworld and the everyday obstacles that a handicapped man must face?

Don’t bet on it.

The Verdict:

Donkey: This movie is classic. It’s premise is idiotic and disgustingly stereotypical of an 80′s action film, featuring a hero that’s conceptually ridiculous while still managing to be skillfully executed by a very credible thespian in Rutger Hauer. The villains run the gamut of stupidity, ranging from amusingly ineffectual to shockingly ball-faced. It’s only major weak point comes in the form of Billy the kid, and much like the legendary western bandit of the same name, I’d pretty much beg to have this particular one hung by the scrotum. Seriously, much like a healthy sex life, kids almost always ruin a movie and this one is no exception. But still, there are enough laughs here to make it worth a watch. I give Blind Fury four dry-humping-filled training montages out of five cases of jungle crotch rot.

What We Learned:

Donkey: If your brother dies under mysterious circumstances, the only way that you can possibly top him is to die under absolutely ludicrous circumstances. Preferably involving a hot tub.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a double feature like you couldn’t possibly imagine as we dissect two of The Asylum’s newest and most awesomely named films in…”MEGA SHARK VS GIANT OCTOPUS” VS “MEGA PIRANHA” VS COMMON SENSE.

Back To The Main Page.

This poster actually captures the reaction that I have the moment I see a picture of Eric Roberts, particularly with an open shirt: HIGH FIVE, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Donkey: High school is a confusing time for most of us. Between involuntary erections, gym teachers that are far too enthusiastic about watching you shower, and a social structure that looks like it had a paranoid schizophrenic in the dementia stage of syphilis as an architect, the whole ordeal can be about as fun playing table tennis with a paddle made of gorgonzola cheese. And while I’m sure that most of the trials that I experienced were pretty standard fare, the one source of infinite confusion in my life that few others were forced to deal with was directly related to this week’s film.

As I sat in my law class for an hour each day of the final semester of grade 12, I found myself glancing back at the rear wall of the classroom every so often with a furrowed brow at the spectacle that awaited me. That particular teacher, for reasons I’ll never know, decided to decorate the back wall of his classroom not with educational material or faux-inspirational pictures that made you want to stab the person sitting next to you in the jaw with your pencil, but with movie posters. And while I, of all people, can appreciate a good movie poster, these weren’t posters of movies that either had anything to do with law or were even landmark films in some way. No, these were obscure, low budget affairs like Kickboxer 6: King Of The Taco Bell Drive Thru, that quite frankly I’m shocked even warranted a poster of any kind, let alone the conscious decision to purchase one. But the one that really drew my eye was the poster that you see above, advertising the adventure of unbridled failure known as Best Of The Best. At the time, I had no idea what this movie was about, and that poster really doesn’t help: a small picture of Eric Roberts, slapped over the image of two people giving an epic high five, finished off with a title so obscure that it might as well be called Movie: The Movie. What the fuck is that? I couldn’t imagine what the hell Eric Roberts was supposed to be the best of, but he seemed pretty happy about it. Eventually as high school itself began to fade into the rearview mirror of my distant memories, this movie went with it. But as the assault known as Shitty Movie Night continued on our fragile collective grip on reality, this film was once again dredged to the surface, mocking me with its promise of obscurity and the sheer mantastic aura that is Eric Roberts. A more fitting film for our enjoyment I couldn’t imagine.

The Plot:

Donkey: Much like searching for dignity at a Cosplay convention, the plot of Best Of The Best is as short as it is pointless. Eric Roberts, Chris Penn, and several other actors that have absolutely no business pretending to be sandwich artists let alone martial artists, team up with one token Asian guy that actually has an air of legitimacy, forming the US National Karate Team. Guided by the vast karate knowledge of Darth Vader himself, they must navigate their way through countless hours of non-karate related training montages in order to prepare for the ultimate sort-of-karate related tournament that no one has ever heard of, all the while entirely unprepared for the true prize that awaits them: the power of love.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Donkey: So here we are, finding ourselves once again treading into familiar territory by wrapping ourselves in the warm, ass-kicking comfort blanket of an 80’s martial arts extravaganza. And we’re not dicking around either; we’ve set our sights on the film that quite literally promises to be the best goddamn movie in existence. Not only the best, but the Best Of The Best, such as it were. So forget your Police Academy XII: Mahoney Vs Dragon Ninja, The Ninja Babysitters Club, Surf Ninjas Get Crabs, or any of those other useless imitators spawned in that decade, and strap in for a guided tour of awesome featuring THE Eric Roberts, star of film, stage, and my pants.

Exhibit A: The Unlikables

The movie starts off with a scene that anyone who was able to stomach their way through the American Ninja Quintilogy with us will recognize as mandatory for all 80’s martial arts movies: a large group of people practicing a painfully basic kata simultaneously with all the speed and grace of a kindergarten class doing their post-nap time stretches. This is our first introduction to the killing machine that is the South Korea karate program. From this exceptionally unimpressive display, they choose five of their best fighters, one of whom wears an eye patch, clearly marking him as the most dangerous man alive due to his obviously being a hybrid pirate-ninja. Once their team is chosen, a blood-chilling chant of “Korea” begins, complying with the government regulated cheer and merriment levels.

While our evil (re: not white) combatants gather on one end of the Earth, we’re slowly introduced to the heroes on the other, beginning with the two main characters of the film:

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that someone was trying to make the case that the wrong Roberts was cast as the Pretty Woman.

Eric Roberts: Working an automotive assembly line by day and teaching his son to ride a bike by night while crying like a school girl and wearing a V neck sweater so goddamn inappropriately low cut that you’d think he was applying for the head waitress job at Hooters, Eric Roberts is an aging contender whose bum shoulder is the only thing standing between us and the destruction that his flowing mane would unleash upon the world. After receiving a letter inviting him to try out for the US National Karate Team, the fires of competition deep within his loins begin to rage anew, surpassing the existing fires of Chlamydia. Ready to spray his burning passion all over his opponents’ faces, he gives his mother a heartfelt speech about his need to compete before getting a little tender and turning to the real man of the house. Pouring on sentiment, Eric asks his son for his official permission to try out for the team after warming him up by reading him a bedtime story titled Faded Glory: Your Father’s Only Three Steps Away From A Serious Alcohol Problem.

I may have already won a million dollars?! HELL YEAH!

Tommy Lee: Fresh from hitting the skins for Motley Crüe’s Dr. Feelgood video, our next hero also decides that it’s time to return to the passion of competition, challenging Vince Neil to see who can contract Hepatitis C after plowing through a gaggle of shady groupies the fastest (hint: As Pamela Anderson can tell you, Tommy ends up winning). Oh, wait…wrong Tommy Lee. In this film, he’s a random Asian dude who’s teaching valuable life lessons to a class of very small children in his dojo of smiles and sunshine when he’s delivered the same message asking him to try out for the US National Karate Team. It’s right about at this point, with all this warm and fuzzy bullshit that we really began to reminisce for the days of invitations being delivered in near-fatal shuriken form.

With those initial introductions finished, the movie wastes no time in getting down to business and taking us to the Qualifying Tournament of Fate and Pop Tarts, where we’re introduced to what will become the rest of the US team:

He couldn't look any less like a martial artist if he was wearing a Donald Duck costume.

Chris Penn: Not seen since his quite literally mind-expanding role in Fist Of The North Star, the late Chris Penn makes his triumphant return to Shitty Movie Night playing the role of the unlikely martial artist and fifth degree douche bag. Strolling into the tournament sporting a cowboy hat, a blaring Boombox, and a shit-eating grin, Chris not only looks like the absolute last guy that would take up the discipline of martial arts – or anything that required discipline of any kind, really – but he proudly flaunts a personality that would get him kicked out of any respectable karate club faster than David Duke at the Apollo Theater. In this tournament alone his conduct ranges from blatantly disrespectful to bordering on psychotic, as his most brazen acts include getting in the face of a ref and verbally molesting him after losing a match, then kicking another opponent in the face while he’s bowing to him. Obviously they’re building him up to be the bad-ass rogue fighter, but this is fucking ridiculous. He’d be kicked out of any respectable tournament so fast that he might as well go for the gusto and end every fight by dropping a steaming pile of victory in the middle of the ring before drop kicking a baby.

The Others: The final two characters rounding out the American team are Sonny and Virgil, an Italian and a Buddhist, respectively. They’re such under-developed characters that those single word descriptions quite literally carry them throughout the duration of the film. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t make either character even slightest bit less interesting if they had been substituted with goddamn houseplants.

Virgil and Sonny. Who? Yep, exactly.

Don't make me Force Choke you, bitches.

The tournament itself, as one would expect, consists of one glorious montage, treating us to the spectacle of our five main characters awkwardly slapping at faceless opponents in a manner that’s supposed to be impressive, provided that your experience witnessing a fight scene of any kind has been limited to watching your kid brother smacking his He-Man dolls into one another for 30 minutes before shitting his pants and breaking down into tears, all set to the greatest 80’s power ballads that K-Tel has to offer. Once the whole thing comes to a disappointing end, the coach of the US Karate Team, played by James Earl Jones, makes his final picks. That’s right: the coach of the national karate team is Darth Vader. While I can appreciate the gravitas that an actor of that caliber brings to your movie, who the fuck honestly thinks that he could be a karate coach? I love the man, but who the hell is he going to teach to fight when his mouth appears to be losing an epic battle to a box of doughnuts at least twice a week? Regardless, he’s visited by an old white man named Jenner, the financial backer of the team to whom he reveals his picks. But when Jenner voices doubts, Darth Cookie Dough assures him that while Jenner’s expertise is business, his is in choosing and training champions. Looking at our main characters, however, I’ve got to call bullshit. Picking Eric Roberts with his gimp shoulder is one thing, but who the fuck would pick Chris Penn for any task more complicated than human speed bump? Jim-E-J describes Chris as being a complete asshole that just happens to be undeniably powerful, which means that sure, he’s your man if you happen to be fighting in a back alley. But in a tournament that’s point-based, where you earn points just from one clean hit regardless of the damage it causes, raw power doesn’t really account for fuck all. So until these assholes are about to take part in Bloodsport, his ability to eat large quantities of soup has about as much relevance.

Little did the contestants know that they were actually kept in the dark to hide the fact that the judging panel consisted of Falco, that kid who played Urkle, a pack of chewing gum, and appropriately enough, Judge Reinhold.

It then comes time to make those selections official, as it cuts back to a ceremony where they announce the names of the five competitors who made the illustrious US National Karate Team, or as I like to call it, Team Rusty Trombone. To no one’s surprise, the five main characters introduced so far are the ones chosen, but what does catch us off guard is the fact that, for reasons I can’t possibly imagine, the ceremony consists of all the competitors sitting in the dark, facing away from the stage. Unless everyone that didn’t make the team is going to be given the consolation prize of a bullet to the back of the head or the celebration following the ceremony is going to involve a lot of KY lube, this seems exceptionally unnecessary. Of course, they attempt to build tension by leaving the announcement of Eric Roberts’ name until the end, and again, I’m not really sure why. As hilariously satisfying as I think it would have been to have followed the trials and tribulations of Eric Roberts thus far just to have him come up short and not end up being picked, only to finish the rest of the movie without him, I don’t’ think anyone would have the balls to attempt that kind of comedy.

After the selections are made, the five champions of might and magic head back to a locker room where after many a high five they get an introductory lecture from the Master of the Dark Side himself, who lays down what I believe are the traditional rules of the Sith: never be late and always function as a team. That only makes sense, as even more than his dual Lightsaber and striking facial tattoos, Darth Maul was famous for his punctuality. James Earl continues his lecture by concluding that “the only objective is to win”. That statement would probably mean a lot more to all of us if he specified winning…what exactly? This isn’t an Olympic team, so it’s entirely unclear as to what exactly they’re competing for, except for perhaps lunch money. But before they sign over their lives to the iron fist of his rule, he tells them that his assistant will be taking them out to a local bar for their last night of fun, encouraging them all to get laid and immediately turning the forecast from stern over to bizarre with a 70 percent chance of creepy. But after leaving his men to undoubtedly lose themselves in another flood of high fives, Jimmy Earl learns of one last addition to his team when he’s met by Old Man Jenner in the hallway. OMJ declares that he’s met someone that he wants the J-Dog to hire onto his team as extra help, describing this person as “a real sensei”. In turn, J.E. Jo’ exclaims that they don’t need any damned sensei, leading me to believe that no one in this movie actually knows what a sensei is. Seriously, this film is portraying a goddamn hot dog eating contest as accurately as any martial art. After all, if the coach of a goddamn karate team isn’t a sensei himself, what exactly does he think he is? A towel boy? A concerned well-wisher?

After further cementing his reputation of being a douche bag by spitting an uncalled for and spectacularly racist impression of an Asian man at Tommy Lee, Chris Penn and the rest of Team Rusty Trombone pair off and check into their assigned dorm rooms to get ready for their night of awkward attempts at debauchery. It begins with Eric Roberts and Tommy Lee as they share a touching conversation about Eric’s kid and totally dead wife before moving on to Sonny and the assistant regaling each other with their respective obsessions, which in the assistant’s case consists of a collection results of every major tournament in the last 5 years as well as statistics on every major fighter in the world, all conveniently stored on about a dozen floppy disks. Wow. With that kind of storage space, I’m going to go ahead and guess that his data on the world’s fighters consists solely of their name and the title of whatever Abba song that they remind him the most of. This grade school slumber party bullshit finally ends with Chris Penn, decked out in his finest ball-clenching cowboy gear, seducing Virgil to give up his meditation and join them at the bar with the promise of sweet poon. Once Virgil agrees, they finally all go out for the evening, ready to paint the town gay. Of course, when you put a gaggle of 80′s martial artists in a room with a bunch of drunken yahoos, particularly when one of them is as big of a taint stain as Chris Penn is in this movie, I don’t think it’s any surprise as to what happens. While the assistant sits at a table, playing on a computer that looks like a TRS-80 without using a monitor of any kind and Eric Roberts makes a call home to talk to his son, Chris Penn starts to dance with a drunken hillbilly’s girlfriend, pawing at her ass like it’s hiding the antidote. Just as Lord Vader himself walks in to witness the scene, the hillbilly defends his honor and throws a punch at Chris, which is easily dodged just in time for it to impact his own girlfriend square in the face. At that point, a full on bar fight naturally ensues, creating a convenient excuse for our heroes to wade through a mass of simpletons, beating them to death with wild abandon while Jimmy Earl watches with a grin. The best part of this scene comes about halfway through when Eric Roberts finally notices the fight and gets off the phone to join in on the badly choreographed action, walking out into the brawl and just nailing the first dude that he comes across right in the face without any kind of provocation or the slightest indication that this guy even wanted to fight in the first place. For all he knew, this poor guy just wanted to get the hell out of there, and now he’s got a shattered jaw to show for it. But once they finally kill or at least mildly inconvenience almost the entire bar, the pudgy Sith Master declares the battle to be over and tells his boys that it’s time to go.

Exhibit B: They Key To Perfecting The Deadly Art Of Karate Lies Somewhere Between Running Laps And Jazz Hands

Had they probed deeper they would have found out that she had only worked as a geisha for the last 12 years, which still would have made her the most qualified martial artist on the coaching staff.

The last character of our dream team is finally introduced back at the training gym the next day when Wade shows up and turns out to be Katherine Wade, one of those funny people that sports a vagina, much to everyone’s horror. After J.E. Jo’ explains that he’s quite reluctant to accept her help, she gives her extensive karate and Eastern philosophy focused background before declaring that without her help, “all his fancy high tech equipment won’t mean shit.” Of course, that sounds like a great argument until you actually watch the rest of the movie and realize that this team uses about as much high tech equipment as the Amish. Sure, they’ve got one punching bag that has a sensor detecting the speed of the appendage impacting it, but that’s about it. The Professor on Gilligan’s Island had more elaborate equipment than these cock swizzles. But of course, Darth Chocoholic relents and bows to her expertise, waiting until the team finishes their first training routines – running laps and doing punching sit ups – to introduce her as the new trainer on the team.

Right about now, it’s time for a set of dueling montages. So while the Americans refine their deadly track running skills, we turn back to the land of evil back rubs to find the Koreans ball-deep in a training routine of their own. They begin on the grounds of an ancient temple, doing such incredible things as switching between basic stances and knuckle push-ups while getting hacked at with a bamboo katana, before kicking it up a notch and running out aimlessly through snow before stopping to karate chop trees with their bare hands while standing shirtless in a blizzard. Not to be outdone, we cut back to the Americans as they practice punches with the refined technique of a drunken frat boy, then jump some rope, and finally top is all off with some yoga. Goddamn it, this is getting to be too much.

What appears to be a very traditional training exercise is actually the Korean team lost in the woods, desperately needing to obtain firewood.

Sure it looks like a display of sheer physical power, but she actually nagged these bricks into finally breaking on their own.

But just as it all comes to a head, the Americans decide it’s time to do some good old fashioned brick breaking, after it’s explained that their upcoming tournament with the Koreans will involve Eastern rules, wherein a tie is settled with a competition of strength and focus, or punching a stack of bricks to be more specific. And as Wade gets up to demonstrate how even a middle aged blonde woman who’s energy is already being sapped by a losing battle with menopause can successfully smash a stack of Styrofoam bricks like a true champion, all I can do is think about what bullshit this is. Only a goddamn American film could suggest that traditional Eastern tournaments are going to involve breaking competitions as an afterthought. That’s so American that they might as well suggest that ancient tradition calls for a tie to be broken by seeing who can chug a dozen Bud Lights before rubbing one out to a Victoria’s Secret catalog the fastest.

To serve as a brief reprieve from the extensive aerobic fat-burning plan that involves just about everything BUT practice their actual fighting techniques, we are forced to sit through another completely unmotivated and entirely useless scene where Chris Penn attacks Tommy Lee’s ethnicity over a shared team meal. So that means we’re about two thirds of the way through the movie now and Chris Penn has still proven to be nothing but an asshole. Why would I be cheering for this guy in the tournament exactly? And from there, we move to a classroom where the gang sits and watches footage of the Korean team in action. As they profile each of the five fighters on the opposing team, they announce which American will be matched against them, imploring them to study their nemesis and prepare to face them. The punch line to this nonsense comes in the fact that Tommy Lee is assigned the task of taking on Dae Han, the leader of the Korean squad and international eye patch model. From his wincing reaction, it’s clear that this news has either affected Tommy deeply, or possibly that he spent the morning slamming fistfuls of expired mayonnaise down his throat, but we’re not exactly sure why. The answer comes later that night as Tommy’s dreams transport him back into the past, returning him to the death of his older brother whom, you guessed it, was fighting Dae Han in a tournament just like he wil soon being doing himself. And while we’re supposed to be digesting the dramatic implications of this obvious plot twist, I can’t help but notice that in his flashback, Tommy’s brother is wearing enough padding while fighting that he could have easily paused from the action and played the back catcher position for the 1975 New York Mets, so it’s actually kind of an amazing feat that he managed to find a way to drop dead in spite of that.

The astute viewer will notice the two guys in the back, whom are never introduced or seen again in this movie. But only the truly elite will understand that they're there solely to infuse the team with unstoppable mustache power.

The next day we get back to the action and are forced to sit through, yep, more goddamn training. After showing the Koreans jogging in slow motion, we’re treated to the film’s title track practically belched out by a faceless 80′s hair band while another American training montage kicks into high gear, this time focusing on weight lifting. Yep, weight lifting. Eventually I think they’re just going to run out of ideas and we’ll see a montage where Chris Penn makes a sandwich. But then for just a brief moment, the movie actually shows something remotely relevant as we find Tommy sparring with Chris Penn, and of course, beating him pretty badly. Never one to miss out on an opportunity to make you hate him even more, Chris Penn graciously accepts defeat by screaming that Tommy’s a chickenshit for not finishing him off. I’m not really sure what kind of a finish he expected when you’re practicing with your own teammates, but I guess that’s proof that even he would rather die than continue on with this monotonous Body Break with Hal Johnson and Joanna McCloud. After being asked what’s wrong by Darth Deepfry, Tommy sulks off and hits a punching bag to the point of exhaustion until we leave this moment of clarity and return to the dense fog of more goddamn training. This time the montage alternates between the Americans taking on the most fearsome opponents they can handle in the form of punching bags while the Koreans shadow box, and then moves on to the boys once again meditating in a field before showing the Koreans praying while standing topless underneath a giant waterfall. And just when I think we can’t possibly take anymore, it ends with a long shot of the Americans jogging down a beach together. In slow motion. FUCK.

Exhibit C: Oh Right, I Guess We Need A Plot, Huh?

His begging was somewhat undermined by Eric's spicy bean burrito-fueled belching.

To finally bring some manner of actual story back into the glorified cardio workout video that we’ve been watching for the last 30 minutes, the movie decides that now’s the time to inject some pointless and shallow drama. It all begins when Eric Roberts gets a phone call that every grown man dreads. No, not the one telling him that he’s HIV positive. And no, not the one telling him that his girlfriend has missed her period. I’m talking about a call informing his that his son has had a terrible accident. Horribly shaken, he approaches Coach Vader to explain that his son has been hit by a car and been hurt quite badly. Pleading to be allowed to go back to stay by his son’s side, he’s resolutely denied by Jimmy Earl, who declares that if Eric leaves, he will never be allowed to return. But as hilariously and unrealistically strict as this seems, Eric naturally ignores him and goes home anyways, saying that he doesn’t have a choice. He ends up staying in the hospital with his son that night, until the kid finally comes out of his coma the next morning. After a weeping bedside scene, Eric Roberts leaves his son in the hands of the professionals and sulks back to Team Rusty Trombone where he begs to be taken back, having been gone for what appears to be a whole day. But showing all the flexibility and compassion of Strom Thurman in a meat locker, JEJ stands his ground, apparently deciding that missing what was probably morning of jumping jacks is unacceptable and reaffirming that Eric is still kicked off the team. But no sooner has he stormed out in anger and disappointment than Eric’s melodrama is immediately upstaged by an even more innocuous conflict. After staring down the business end of a Dark Sith spaz attack for pulling his punches, Tommy responds by letting loose a full power kick which not only destroys their impact detecting pad, but also briefly knocks Virgil, the poor bastard holding it at the time, out cold for a short time. So like Bruce Banner after reverting back to find himself clad only in torn but oddly in tact pants, Tommy flees in the face of his hidden explosive power, leaving them all behind with mouths agape.

As the scene moves outside, Eric catches up with Tommy for some reason, just as he’s getting on his bike, ready to quit Team Rusty Trombone forever. When Eric asks what the hell he’s doing, Tommy cries out that he can’t fight Dae Han, finally sharing pain of the fate that his older brother suffered while doing the exact same thing that he is now faced with. But after incredibly standard advice about not bottling up his issues and living for himself rather than his dead brother, which is so incredibly generic that Eric might as well have just rolled out a TV with Dr. Phil on it and let it do the talking for him, Tommy remains resolute and takes off on his motorcycle. And as he drives off into the distance to do some heavy thinking, everyone who suffered through Cool As Ice with us knows what’s coming: a long montage of random bike riding on a highway to nowhere. While all this is going on, Wade finds convenient plot-moving information and confronts Coach Vader on it, demanding to know how he could send Tommy to fight Dae Han knowing that his brother was killed in the exact same circumstance. In response, Darth Potpie explodes into a lecture about giving your all, saying that Tommy Lee’s brother didn’t take the situation seriously enough and died as a result of it. As he was the coach at the time, Jimmy Earl takes personal responsibility for that failing and declares that he’ll never let it happen again. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t really answer why he chose Tommy Lee to fight Dae Han specifically, as there are four other men who could have done so just as easily. So yeah, I guess the answer to that question is hhhunnggghhh (POOP)!

I'm so out of here! But before I go, can you tell me if I've got something stuck in my teeth?

Um, coach...seeing as we're just two random dudes and the guy from Footloose, you might want to reconsider taking back the movie's stars.

With their two greatest fighters gone, leaving only the sociopath and the random fodder to carry the team’s load, the remaining three members of Team Rusty Trombone approach Coach Vader, asking if he would please change his mind about Alex, because they clearly need both him and Tommy Lee to win. Well, technically they need those two to even qualify to compete, but why nitpick? Conceding the point and somehow taking that very basic logic as a sign that his men have come together as a team, J.E. Jo’ tracks down Eric back at the dorm. Apparently he agrees to come back onboard, as the movie then skips to the next day where the team is at the airport, ready to depart when Alex walks in to much ovation and half mast Johnsons. Conveniently right around that time, Tommy Lee also has an epiphany at a gas station while taking a break from what is turning out to be a ridiculously long bike trip. He watches an older brother give his ice cream cone to his younger sibling who dropped his own and is so touched by that moment that he races back just in time to catch the team at the airport. Of course, knowing what brothers are like, if he had stuck around for another 30 seconds he probably would have witnessed the older brother changing his mind, punching the younger one in the face, and taking back the ice cream, so we’ll just be thankful that he left when he did. Finally reunited and ready to experience an colossal failure, the great Team Rusty Trombone shares hugs and reach-arounds before getting on the plane and flying to meet their destiny.

Exhibit D: Failure Has Never Tasted So Arbitrary

This is Scott Parkerson reporting to you live from Seoul, South Korea. I have no idea why the fuck I'm here. Back to you, Chuck.

As the movie arrives in Korea, we travel directly to the tournament, where the boys suit up in a locker room while a black announcer sets the stage by narrating the introduction to the tournament, expounding on how Tae Kwan Do is as important to the Koreans as baseball is to Americans before going on even further to explain that this is a tournament that involves a combination of Karate, Kickboxing, Judo, and Tae Kwan Do. What?! This is supposed to be a fucking karate tournament. It doesn’t take a goddamn PhD to realize that those are all completely different martial arts, and as we’ve been told multiple times up to this point, they are the US National Karate team, not the US Every Martial Art You Can Think Of team. Shit, these fuckbuckets can barely learn one martial art, let alone four. But after one final inspirational speech that ends with Darth Tub of Ice Cream telling his men that if they give everything they have in their heart, they can be the best of the best (fuck, I love it when they state the name of the movie in the actual movie itself), the competitors come filing into the arena to face one another in the long, long, long awaited battle.

The tournament officially begins with Sonny, the greasy Italian, facing his chosen opponent. As you’d imagine, he fights with all the grace of a one-legged dog coughing out its death rattle and ends up losing, giving the Korean team an 11 to 7 lead in points after the first match. Next up is Virgil the Buddhist, and he doesn’t fare much better, eventually crawling out of the ring after handing Korean a 20 to 9 lead. And of course, the last of our less than important competitors is Chris Penn, who after all the goddamn training that we had to sit through still fights like he’s quarreling with cousin Jed over the last bar stool. But despite this, he actually manages to become the most successful American to this point, battling his opponent to a tie. And so we move to the previously mentioned brick smashing tie breaker. Mustering all of his racism-fueled might, Chris breaks around 8 Styrofoam bricks, while the much smaller and theoretically weaker Korean dude breaks 9, proving in spades that the supposed raw power that Chris was recruited for came in about as useful as a passionate love for bee keeping. So just to recap, that’s 3 losses out of 5 fights so far and only one of them was even close. I’m not sure who the fuck it is they were referring to when they named this movie Best Of The Best, but it’s extremely apparent that it wasn’t any one of these assclowns. Maybe it was the catering staff…

What makes Chris Penn's loss in this contest even more humiliating is that the other guy used his penis to smash his bricks.

Only seconds before the fist smashed his nose across his face, Eric Roberts finally realizes that he's not auditioning for So You Think You Can Dance Korea.

With the lesser peons quickly out of the way, the movie finally picks up as Eric Roberts makes his way into the ring, even going so far as to show us a random bar in the US where a throng of drunken onlookers are cheering and drinking, proving this to be a monumental occasion for at least a couple of dozen people. It might even be important enough to rival the viewership of last year’s lumberjack championship. Just before the match finally starts, Eric declares that he’s going to kick his opponent’s ass. Really, Eric? I thought you were there to crochet him an ill-fitting sweater out of wool and an undeserved sense of self satisfaction. Once the fight actually begins, Eric starts to close the gap between the teams’ points fairly quickly before things start to even out in the second round. It continues to flow along fairly evenly until Eric gets knocked down and takes an axe kick to the back. It appears to be a fairly unremarkable moment until he crawls back to his corner and reveals that he’s injured that bum shoulder that everyone was warned about. But being a man of steel, brawn, and high fiber content, ignores the calls for him to quit, telling him that it’s over. He knows, just as the announce tells us, that the rules state that if he cannot continue, all the points that he had gained are forfeit, which doesn’t make any goddamn sense, but whatever. Instead Eric begs for someone to pop his shoulder back into place until someone finally does. But it’s not exactly like he’s back to peak physical condition at that point, so rather than letting it hang uselessly at his side, he demands that someone “tape it up” while literally screaming like a girl. They do exactly that, taping his arm to his chest before he heads out for the last 30 seconds of the fight with the use of only one arm. And not only does he manage to survive that time, but he actually manages to fight better than he did with two hands, capping it off by kicking his opponent out of the fucking ring. As his bout comes to an end, we see that the score has narrowed to a mere 29 to 22.

Much to my chagrin, the final match of the tournament is not between a back massager and 1975 Buick Skylark, but is instead, of course, between Tommy Lee and De Han. Tommy is tentative at first, so in return Dae Han starts kicking his ass, scoring three unanswered points before his opponent finally decides to wake up. Fulfilling yet another 80′s martial arts movie stereotype, once the fight actually begins to climax it consists of little more than a lot of needless jumping around and horribly telegraphed kicks. But Tommy Lee finally starts to kick some ass, ending the first round down a measly 6 points instead of a whopping 7. If that’s not fucking progress, I don’t know what is. Just before the second round starts, Darth Pudding reminds Tommy that they need to either make up those points or score a knock out. Alright, at this point this whole plot is pretty blatantly not making any goddamn sense. If he knocks out his opponent, why would that arbitrarily make up the point difference between the two teams? Even if you disregarded points and decided that specific match was a total victory, the Koreans have still won more matches than they have. Honestly, at this point I’m surprised it isn’t stated that they only way the Americans can win is if Tommy Lee performs the infamous Triple Lindy. But the second round starts with a little more spice, as Tommy Lee takes two illegal hits, first to the balls and then to an eye. But that only spurs him on further, as Tommy continues to make up ground closing the gap by hitting Dae Han with a flurry of 5 punches and/or kicks that for some reason only count as 1 point. But after his flurry of pain reduces the point difference to one and leaves Dae Han standing dazed, just begging to be hit with one final killing blow, Tommy has a flashback of his brother’s death and begins to let his anger boil to the surface. Spotting the signs of his coming eruption, Eric and Jimmy Earl start yelling “no” from the sidelines, knowing that Tommy not only intends on murdering his opponent, but also actually believing that he somehow can do just that with a single strike. But rather than somehow proving the incredibly unlikely, Tommy manages to maintain enough control to resist the urge and simply stand there, letting the time run out. When the buzzer finally sounds to bring an end to the match, the Korean team scurries out to drag De Han back to his corner, while a somber Tommy walks back to Captain J.E. Jo’, who tells him that despite standing back and allowing his team to lose by a single point, he actually won that match. So yeah, all that and they lost. Wow. What a massive waste of time this entire ordeal has been.

Don't worry, dude. That asshole would never let me play with his Legos, so we're cool.

The tournament then comes to a glorious close with the traditional medal ceremony, where the two teams stand lined up and facing one another as the Americans are forced to watch the gold medals get hung around the Korean team’s necks. But while his teammates begin to celebrate their victory, De Han limps over to Tommy Lee. Barely containing his sobs, Dae Han tells him that to save a life in defeat is to earn a victory in honor, which we’ll just go ahead and translate into “thanks for not destroying my ass”, before declaring that his brother was a great fighter. He continues to say that he deeply regrets Tommy’s loss, and offers himself as Tommy’s brother, which, again, I’ll just go ahead and translate into “want to build a fort out of some couch cushions?”. In a move of ultimate humble respect, Dae Han then puts his medal around Tommy’s neck while they both bawl like kids flocking out of Transformers: The Movie after watching Optimus Prime die. Finding the ability to forgive somewhere just below his ability to make a delicious quiche, Tommy embraces Dae Han and all is right in the world again. Much like the audience in that stadium, I find this so touching that I’m pretty sure this movie just molested me. The Korean dude that Eric Roberts fought is inspired to honor his lesser opponent as well, walking up to him and saying that he knows everything about him before also putting his medal around his neck. Eric Roberts replies by saying that he knows all he ever wants to know about his opponent, which I think is supposed to be a compliment even though it seems like a really shitty thing to say. The last three Koreans then follow suit as well, only much more quickly and with less fanfare since no one gives a shit before the movie draws to a close with them all stand together, holding each others arms up in the air just before the credits roll. So I guess when you’re not actually the best of the best, you can always hope for sympathy.

That's right folks...in the Special Olympics, everyone's a winner.

The Verdict:

Donkey: Best Of The Best has the truly great quality of not falling completely flat on its face because of a lack of budget or talent, but entirely because of the very premise on which it builds. Eric Roberts is the somewhat leader of the US National Karate team which spends almost no time actually practicing anything that is even close to actual karate while under the watchful eye of a man whom clearly doesn’t even know how to spell karate, before heading over to Korea to fight in a tournament that they never actually explain the point of, where they face off against only one other team and manage to lose quite badly by any reasonable measure. Fuck. This movie really did push me to the very edge of literary skills, as it’s hard to write any kind of coherent exposition on it when the only thought running through my rather stunned mind for an hour and a half was, “BULLSHIT!” But while I applaud it’s aggressively insane plot, the problem is that watching a movie that consists just as much of random exercise montages as anything else gets painfully boring. I have to give this movie three and a half inappropriately low cut sweaters out of five confusingly dead brothers.

What We Learned:

Donkey: People in the 80′s apparently thought you could basically become a full fledged ninja after doing little more than panting your way through the Sweating To The Oldies series.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: a break from the pain, as we approach the end of the year in reflection of what we have endured and assist you with the approaching holiday season by delivering…A SHITTY MOVIE BUYER’S GUIDE OF BALL DRAINING GLORY.

Back To The Main Page.

I can feel it, alright. Right in the scrotum.

Donkey: If the movie Twins taught us only one lesson, it’s that surly dwarves guiding over-sized man-children though the pratfalls of day to day existence under the guise of miraculously being closer in relation than an army ant and a line dancing animatronic Billy Ray Cyrus from the future can be mildly amusing. And in the land of Hollywood, that mild amusement somehow translates into consent for the these same two fellows to rape our collective brains with a movie about said over-sized man-child carrying a baby in the horribly muscle-bound death cage that he calls a womb. If it taught us two things, which is kind of a stretch by anyone’s measure, it would be that apart from thanklessly and often needlessly killing things, Arnold Schwarzenegger is only good for laughing at himself, which I have to give him credit for. After all, despite being a horrible flop at the box office, I think Last Action Hero is one of his funniest and overall best movies. But if you had to try to pull a third lesson from its near lifeless claws of comic mediocrity, you could say that it reinforced the notion that twin siblings share a special bond that can never be broken.

Like JCVD, or Jesus herpes if you will, that’s a bond that I’ll never get to experience. Being the middle child of three boys, I can certainly relate to having siblings, but neither of them are as close as a twin; quite the opposite, actually. Unbearably pompous, undeniably loathsome, and unashamed of publicly simmering in a stew of their own droopy old man balls and blatant inadequacy, I prefer to keep my brothers about as close to me a jar of hissing scorpions with AIDS-filled stingers. Can’t wait to see you at Christmas, motherfuckers! But unlike me, some tiny little detail like reality is not going to stop JCVD from unleashing double the Van Dammage upon the Earth. And while a council of top scientists has confirmed that actually having two JCVDs in the world would cause it to collapse upon itself in the inevitable black hole of awesomeness that would be created, poorly executed movie magic is perfect for simulating those disaster conditions. So with that, let’s take a closer look at Double Impact.

(Editor’s note: Since many people are about as good at spotting sarcasm as they are a Sasquatch, I’ll state for the record that everything I said about my brothers was actually a lie. We’re actually quite close. Well, except for the old man balls thing. That’s totally true.)

The Plot:

Donkey: Separated at birth after their parents are betrayed and murdered by a business associate, the twin brothers Van Damme are reunited 25 years later to exact their revenge and claim what’s rightfully theirs. But before they can take on the Hong Kong underworld, they’ll have to find a way to put aside their comically mismatched dong punching differences and collective inability to form a coherent thought to work together as a team.

So in other words, it’s kind of like a buddy-cop film with less Danny Glover and more Van Damme giving himself a high five for two straight hours. If that doesn’t tickle your sense of awesome, then you’ve clearly replaced your ball sack with a hot cheddar cheese pump. And while that might ensure that you’re a hit at the next Superbowl party you go to, eventually the nachos will run out leaving you to realize that you’ve chosen poorly.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Exhibit A: Betrayal Is A Dish Best Served Phenomenally Confusing

Papa Van Damme (right) laments over how much more money he could have made selling giant novelty scissors for ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

Donkey: Our cinematic adventure this week begins with the motivation behind JCVD’s ball showcasing splits of glory by detailing the epic downfall of his parents. We’re introduced to them at the same time as the movie reveals the object of pure desire that they are betrayed and killed for. But in an epic journey featuring a lethal dose of sweetness such as this, what could possibly stand as a grand enough prize for those involved? A fortune of lost pirates’ gold? The world’s most priceless piece of art? A freight train full of diamonds laced with heroin? Fuck that. This movie steps it up a notch with…a tunnel. That’s right; the central conflict of this movie is going to be based around a public transportation project. Specifically it’s the new Victoria Harbor Tunnel in Hong Kong. After witnessing the ribbon cutting ceremony performed by Papa Van Damme and his business partner, Griffith, we warp to that night as the twin babies of ultimate destruction are being driven home by their parents, who send their family bodyguard, Frank, home for the night. But just after their cars part ways, Papa VD notices that they are being followed. Upon hearing the news, Frank realizes that trouble is afoot and races to catch up to them. But before he can reach them, the family pulls into the driveway of their home to find a group of men waiting for them whom quickly open fire, eventually killing the Papa VD and the Invincible Vagina (so named because popping two JCVDs out of that thing is a task no mortal vagina could handle). But before they can finish the job and assassinate the Wonder Twins in the back of the car, Frank pulls up and opens fire, holding them at bay long enough for the family’s nanny to flee with one of the kids. Grabbing the other child himself, Frank darts through nearby bushes to escape, pausing only momentarily to discover Papa VD’s business partner, Griffith, just hanging around and watching the assassination, because apparently establishing an alibi is for chumps. The prologue ends with the nanny dropping off the one child at an orphanage run by French nuns, giving us a convenient excuse for JCVD’s accent. Meanwhile, apparently uninterested in spending so much as 10 minutes looking for the other child, Frank heads back to the US to raise the one boy himself.

Exhibit B: Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? And Maybe Put Those Goddamn Balls Away?

I don't think it's possible to showcase your balls any better than that.

25 years later, we journey into the synth-pop hustle and bustle of LA in the early 90’s where we discover JCVD 1, or Chad, running a gym/martial arts dojo/gay pride parade planning facility, covering for his obviously flamboyant lifestyle by lecturing women on the importance of stretching while literally doing the splits and bouncing his balls on the floor in front of them in the expressed purpose of impressing them. But as the women drool over the image of what could be the ultimate tea bagging experience, Frank interrupts and asks him to go take care of a problem in one of their karate classes. As he gets up to assure Frank that he’s got everything under control, we get to see that JCVD’s tight pastel blue leotard is giving him fucking ball cleavage, or dude camel toe. I would try to describe to you the horror of this sight, but until human language produces a word that causes both your brain and scrotum to burst upon utterance, I’m afraid I’m destined to fail in any attempt. So instead I can only assure you that I just threw up in my mouth even in merely remembering this scene. But after going in to the karate class kick a new recruit in the face for being a douche and trying to prove how badass he is by beating on fellow class members (which would get you summarily removed from any self-respecting martial arts organization), Chad is called up to the office where Frank has just finished meeting with a private investigator who found the lost twin brother, JCVD 2. Frank then takes the opportunity to reveal that he’s not actually Chad’s uncle, and that while he was raised in France, Chad wasn’t born there (keep in mind he doesn’t give a single reason for raising him in France, other than yet another convenient reason for the accent). But as Chad reels from the information that he probably should have been given years ago, Frank asks simply that Chad trust him, and just like that, they’re off to Hong Kong.

I stand corrected.

Once they land, Frank and Chad don’t bother to fuck around and instead jump straight into a cab heading to a Mahjong Parlor run by the other Van Damme, the twin known as Alex. They arrive shortly after a scene of Chad pointing out random markets and lights that don’t mean much of anything, which you wouldn’t think would impress a guy from LA unless he’s certifiably rubberheaded, and head straight into the joint. Chad, wearing an awesome pastel green shirt and pink short shorts, is immediately mistaken for Alex by everyone around them, including Alex’s girlfriend, Danielle, who seductively invites Chad into the back office for some sweet 80’s loving – which basically means that they’re going to bury their faces in one another’s teased and Debbie Gibson’s signature perfume Electric Youth-scented pubic hair for 7 minutes before lying in bed and watching Dynasty. Complementing his new look, which means that she’s either blind or into walking punch lines, Danielle undoes his pink shorts and grabs inside at his silk underwear, going straight for the goods. He urges her on, reassuring her that he has a big surprise, nay, a huge surprise in there waiting for her. Unless it’s a vagina, I’m going to go ahead and call bullshit on that one. But just as she starts to enter into a thumb wrestling contest with his little Van Dammage, Alex taps Chad on the shoulder, waits until he turns around, and knocks him out with one punch.

Hey there, sexy. Come back and show me how far those ride up.

As Chad begins to slowly regain consciousness, he can hear Alex and Danielle arguing through the haze about her indiscretion with Chad, as she naturally says that it was a harmless mistake since she no one knew Alex had a twin and he indignantly responds that they could never be mistaken for one another because Chad looks like a “faggot”. Wow. We’re not pulling any punches, huh? The only way that could have been better is if Van Damme had proclaimed that while in blackface. But as Chad sits up and remembers where his is, Frank steps in and diffuses the situation, making the highly scientific case that the two brothers are twins by insisting that they just look at each other. Once they finally settle down, he explains that he used to work for their father, whom ran into money trouble half way through building the famous Hong Kong tunnel project. To help him fund the completion of the project, he had brought in Griffith, whom in turn had got his money from the Zhang crime family. Once construction was done, Griffith and Zhang had their parents wiped out so that they could take sole possession. Sole possession…of a tunnel. Frank urges the brothers to work together, take their revenge on Griffith and the Zhang family, and claim what’s rightfully theirs – a goddamn tunnel. Unconvinced that they can accomplish that on their own, Alex offers to show them some “real action” to see what they’re made of.

You couldn't have this look any worse if one of them was bathed in sunlight.

Exhibit C: Wonder Twin Powers, Activate! Form Of…Gratuitous Ego Masturbation!

Yes Chad, you're both pirates. One of you is just a little more literal than the other.

The next day Frank and the brothers find themselves on Alex’s boat in the middle of the Hong Kong harbor, in pursuit of this so called “real action”, which turns out to be smuggling Mercedes cars with trunks full of smokes and shitty VCRs to Chinese buyers. But just as the buy is finishing, the Hong Kong marine police suddenly declare over a bullhorn that they are all under arrest, taking them all by surprise. Of course, I’m not really sure how none of them managed to see them coming a long time ago. After all, they’re in fucking boats in the open water, so it’s pretty hard to sneak up on anyone, even one of JCVD’s famous stealth boats. Accusing Alex of setting them up, the buyers turn their guns on him and the others, causing a melee to ensue. After summarily pitching the random thugs overboard with their combined powers of rad, the brothers turn their attention to fleeing from the swiftly incoming cops. But once they realize that they’re not making a fast enough getaway, Chad and Frank roll the cars off the back of the boat, landing in the water between them and the cops, before shooting in their general direction and somehow causing them to explode, creating a flaming barrier. And of course, rather than just going around them and continuing the pursuit, this rather tiny obstacle is deemed insurmountable by the cops, who simply let the twins escape. Such action! Are we the only ones looking for the socks that this movie just blew off our goddamn feet?

The film then moves to an outdoor café where we’re forced to watch a woman decapitate and gut a live frog before returning to the brothers. Thanks, Double Impact! I was totally looking for something to bum me out just to balance out the incredible high that this film has had me riding. After declaring that the incident in the harbor has established their credentials for being certified bad-asses, or possibly as dental hygienists, Frank asks the brothers what they plan to do about the tunnel. Being the only one in the group who’s not legally retarded, Danielle asks Frank if there’s any record of the twins’ parents owning the tunnel, to which Frank claims that there doesn’t need to be because he was there and has the scars to prove it. But when she naturally points out that bat-shit crazy exposition is inadmissible as evidence in a court of law, Frank gives her an angry lecture on how Zhang only understands one kind of justice, the law of the shotgun. So…he’s from Alabama? Doing what any reasonable person would do in the face of what appears to be the drunken ranting of an insane drifter, Danielle storms off, prompting Frank to ask what her problem is, like SHE’S the one being the insufferable douche bag. Alex reveals that she’s been working for Griffith for 5 years now before chasing after her, assuring her that while the old man is crazy, she should quietly check on what he’s claiming anyways.

The only justice Zhang knows is street justice! That's why we have to assemble a dance crew and make sure he gets served, bi-otch!

Here, put on a coat dear, or you'll catch a cold.

From there Chad gets into a cab alone and goes back to…God knows where, only to be grabbed by a group of mobsters who mistake him for Alex. They throw him into a waiting car with Zhang and his Mini-boss head thug, Bolo Yeung, or as most people know him, Chong Li from Bloodsport. And since this movie doesn’t bother to give him a name, that’s what I’m going to continue to call him. Oh, wait, looked it up on IMDB…his name is Moon? Right, Chong Li it is. Trying his best to look like an evil overlord, Zhang makes a pitch to recruit Chad to sell coke for him rather than smuggle cars for himself while pulling a cigar out of the wooden stogie box that Frank gave JCVD’s father as a gift on the night of his death. Of course, tying to look like an evil overlord might actually work if you had the basic cranial capacity required to remove the monogrammed initials off of the goddamn cigar box you’re carrying. And of course as they arrive at an empty shipping yard, Chad recognizes the initials on the box just before he’s pulled from the car and is given the complete details of a freighter that will be waiting there on Thursday for an impending drug deal. Zhang tells him that all Chad needs to do is pick up the boat and bring it over to his dock. Chad’s elegant response is a simple, “go fuck yourself”. And seeing as this kind of response to a crime boss usually results in someone giving a blowjob to a berretta, it’s no surprise when a crowd a Zhang’s goons gathers around Chad in anticipation, watching eagerly as Chong Li takes the honors of beating Chad into unconsciousness and throwing him into an empty shipping container. That container is then put on a truck, driven into town, and opened just long enough to throw him into the streets.

Once Chad drags his bruised and battered body clad in a ridiculous green suede jacket back into Alex’s place, Frank grills him for what little information he can about the attackers before asking the brothers if they’re finally in or what. With an awesome blue screen image that in no way looks like it was spliced together by a film school dropout using Elmer’s glue while wearing oven mitts, they both proclaim that they’re in. Fuck yeah!

As different as they may seem, ask a basic math question and they'll both give you the same expression.

Exhibit D: Revenge Takes A Back Seat To Picturing My Brother’s Ass

Ouch! Time-out, guys! I landed on my keys!

To prepare for their upcoming war with the Zhang crime family, Alex guides Chad and Frank to their new base of operations, a dilapidated and abandoned hotel on a small island. As they sail along on his garbage barge of a boat, he gets a call from Danielle. She lets him know that while she was snooping around the files in her office, she was interrupted by Griffith’s suspicious muscle-bound female bodyguard, Kara. Alex thinks little of it as he docks the boat and escorts Chad and Frank to the hotel. Later that night they take a moment to prepare their arsenal before carrying out an assault on the drug deal that Zhang had conveniently detailed to Chad. That assault, like the rest of the movie, has about as much substance as an Andy Dick doctoral thesis. The brothers sneak up to the location Metal Gear Solid style before Alex sneaks around and plants plastic explosives while Chad keeps acts as a guard. That is until Chad gets slightly impatient, wanders directly into the midst of the enemies, and kicks the first dude he sees in the face. This, of course, alerts the entire site to their presence and sparks a fire fight of epically underwhelming proportions, featuring Alex rolling around awkwardly on the floor while firing dual pistols at faceless goons while Chad manages to end up at the business end of the laser sight of a thug who literally takes far too long to decide to maybe get around to shooting before he’s taken out by Frank’s sniper rifle. Eventually Alex steals a truck and with Chad hanging off the side of it, they get out range before Frank detonates the bombs and blows the whole thing sky high.

When you had that dude from Cake Boss cater this affair, you didn't explain that's a ship full of drugs, did you?

With the first part of their ham-fisted assault complete, it’s time to go for the gold. After meeting with Danielle and finding out that Griffith will be at a nightclub called the Climax Club that evening, which just happens to be owned by Zhang, the brothers spring into action. The movie transitions to the club that night where we see Griffith and Zhang meeting with the heads of their crime family, toasting a new method of shipping drugs while sitting around what appears to be a massive cake in the shape of a freighter carrying drugs. As Alex wanders into the front door and tells the nearest mullet-sporting goon that he can find that he has the case of booze that Griffith has been asking for, Zhang and Griffith are accuse some poor bastard in their own group of sabotaging the drug deal the previous night before having Kara kill him with a single stab to the chest while flexing her ladyballs. Yeah, you just gave all the details of your drug deal to someone who then turned around and told you to go fuck yourself and it’s this guy who must have fucked you over. With deductive skills like that, I’d be surprised if these two ass clowns could manage to peddle Twinkies in a fat camp. But just after the exceptionally needless killing, Griffith and Zhang are given the case of booze that Alex delivered, prompting them to finally realize that Alex knew about the drugs and demand to have him brought to them. Of course, if they had half a goddamn brain between them, they might suspect at that point that the case of “booze” is actually “a big fucking bomb”, or at the very least think to check it out. But while Alex and Frank wait nervously, blending into the crowd in the club’s main room, Griffith and Zhang’s mullet-clad goon emerges just in time to meet Chad as he wanders in from another entrance with another case. The goon insists that Chad come to the back, but rather than following, Chad hits the deck as Frank detonates the first package, which, even though it’s sitting on a table mere feet away from Zhang and Griffith, manages to explode and not give anyone in the room so much as a splinter. But of course, this causes quite a commotion, so Chad and Alex start focusing their destructive power on a wave of random goons. Then just as they’re about to leave, Zhang and Griffith emerge from the back in time to see both brothers standing together and realize that they’re dealing with twins. As the two groups share an awkward moment, Kara notices the second case sitting on the dance floor and yells a warning, prompting them all to flee the club before it goes off in a massive explosion that’s hilariously disproportionate to the first one. Apparently one box was packed with C4 and the other was a pack of Mentos and some goddamn Diet Coke.

This might be hot if I weren't so sure her balls were bigger than mine.

Seeing as how the brothers have been caught making an attempt on Zhang and Griffith’s lives, it only makes sense that the very next day, Danielle resumes her snooping around Griffith’s records. Of course she’s once again caught by Kara, whom decides to make sure that Danielle isn’t hiding anything by frisking/molesting her. But before we can cheer on some chick rape, Danielle bolts and the scene ends. She immediately calls back to the brothers’ Hidden Fortress of Alternative Lifestyles where she reaches Chad, who’s in the kitchen making a huge batch of plain noodles while Alex and Frank are off chopping wood in the jungle. As Danielle tells him that she’s found a document to support their claim and that she’s in real trouble now, Griffith and Zhang naturally listen in on the conversation from a phone in his office. Assuring her that everything will be okay, Chad tells her to go to Alex’s Mahjong Parlor and they’ll meet her there. He runs outside looking for others, giving up after 8 seconds and taking the boat. He meets Danielle as promised, only to have Kara and a group of thugs invade the Mahjong Parlor moments later, pursuing them through the streets of Hong Kong and over a series of boats until the two heroes dive in the water and make a getaway on Alex’s garbage barge. While all this is going on, Alex somehow knows to call back to his office to talk to the duo, but ends up being hung up on when place is raided. This leads him down the path of jealous rage that is no way completely fucking psychotic.

Two things happen at this point. First, as Chad and Danielle slowly tugboat their way back to the island fortress, Kara proves to be the only person in this movie capable of forming a coherent thought as she jumps into a helicopter and follows the two of them, suspecting which island they may be going to and then having the confirmed when Frank comes wandering out of the hotel to stand like a fucking idiot and stare up at the helicopter as it flies by. And second, after a needless titty scene where Danielle gets changed into fresh clothes, the movie alternates between the Chad and Danielle sailing back in quiet sexual tension and Alex rampaging around the hotel while envisioning a low quality softcore porn scene of his brother having sex with his girlfriend. To really appreciate that, you have to stop and remind yourself that at this point JCVD is now engaging in a long dream sex involving…JCVD. I can’t help but think at this point that if Van Damme was in Burger King and really could have it his way, there wouldn’t be a woman in this scene at all…just two Van Dammes, locked in an embrace of unbridles passion and awesomeness.

Van Damme, thinking about a woman making love to Van Damme, gets so excited that the semen has to come out somewhere.

Eventually, once this ridiculously long scene of JCVD imaging his own ass pounding into his girlfriend is finished, Chad and Danielle finally make it back to the hotel to find Alex completely wasted. He accuses them of fucking, of course. But once the blonde points out that he’s drunk, he drops her with one hard slap. Awesome. So again, just to review, he are now supposed to be cheering for two brothers, one of which is a petty, vicious woman-beater who flies into a violent rage when he simply imagines his girlfriend with another dude. But anyways, Chad kicks him in the face in retaliation, much to our delight, and the single greatest fight of all time begins. It’s JCVD versus JCVD in an all out Battle Royale. But disappointingly, it only last a few moments before Frank comes in a breaks it up. But when Frank dismisses Alex being completely fucking insane as being a mere result of simply being drunk, Alex compounds his position by saying:

Alex: “Maybe I’m drunk. Tomorrow I’ll be sober. But he’ll always be a faggot.”

Wow. Seriously? I’m actually supposed to want this guy to not trip and fall penis first into a wood chipper? Anyways, the scene ends with both brothers huffing and puffing indignantly and in equally retarded fashions before going their separate ways. Alex gives a rant about no one being there for him when he was on the streets while Chad runs into the black of night, swearing that he’s going to swim back to LA.

Exhibit E: Van Dammes! Merge To Become…Useless-Tit-icon!

That's right, Mr. Lehey. Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles are running the trailer park while you're here. What do you think of that?

The next morning both brothers wake up from having slept outside at various distances away from the hotel and look over just in time to see Kara and Zhang sending a battalion of guerilla solders to storm their fortress. But before they can join in the fight, Frank and Danielle are captured and taken away in a helicopter, leaving only a handful of soldiers, or fodder if you will, behind to patrol the area. Of course Chad and Alex make short work of those poor bastards, dealing with them swiftly as the helicopter carrying their captured comrades arrives at a shipping yard. Once they eventually meet, the brothers interrogate the sole survivor of their wrath, grilling him for the location that Zhang has fled to, while Zhang and Griffiths likewise torture Frank by beating on him and blasting him with steam, more for fun than for gathering information of any kind.

With that, we’ve once again reached that very familiar part of the movie, the climactic final battle. It begins with the two JCVD’s sneaking onto the boat where Griffith and Zhang are hiding, stabbing and neck-breaking their way in. They slowly work their way down through the bowels of the freighter, eventually ending up in a firefight that alerts everyone to their presence. With the game now officially afoot, Griffith gets on an intercom and allows them to hear Frank scream like a little girl that they’re being held in the boiler room while being blasted with more steam. And just to up the ante, they go even further and fake shooting Frank over the intercom, which causes Chad to freak out, screaming like he’s just been violated by a hippopotamus before getting on an intercom himself, swearing to Griffiths that he’s dead. A series of very predictable scenes then follows, involving the brothers shooting random dudes before we finally end up with a series of mini-boss battles:

Mini-Boss 1 – Italian Karate Cowboy…Seriously: First up, Alex ends up fighting some this random Italian dude wearing a suit with spurs on his boots. They flip through semi-darkness like a couple of gymnasts on E, doing what I suppose is supposed to be some kind of fighting until finally Alex beats him to death. Short, sweet, pointless.

The not-quite-so-ultimate opponent: a greasy Italian in a cheap suit.

Chong Li's attempts at intimidation might have been taken a little more seriously had someone not told him the world's most hilarious knock knock joke only moments earlier.

Mini-Boss 2 – Bloodsport II: The second fight is a rematch of an epic battle from a previous film, as Chad fights Chong Li. If he beats him after having dust thrown in his eyes again, I might just shit my pants laughing. But instead, the fight begins with Chong Li wasting a lot of energy by throwing heavy barrels at Chad, like some kind of shitty version of Donkey Kong, until Chad finally matches the stupidity by trying to stop a barrel that’s flying at him by kicking it, rather than just stepping out of the way. Chong Li then pins Chad to the ground with a barrel and tries to squish him while smiling like a rapist. Eventually Chad escapes and they slowly make their way into another room where, after ripping Chad’s shirt off, Chong Li takes his own off before giving a dramatically goofy flex pose. They finally begin an actual martial arts battle which at best could be described as very uninspired, before Chad finally unleashes a remarkable 6 straight flying splits kicks, causing Chong Li to fly into an open electrical panel (Looks like Blombo’s been working on that site). But not only is Chong Li is electrocuted, but sparks also fly as he falls to the floor, lighting a random trail of fuel that leads back to barrels of what one has to guess is pure gasoline. Realizing that he’s standing in the middle of this field of barrels, JCVD gives us the classic run and jump slow-mo scene, diving away from the fire even though it should have still enveloped him.

Despite Chong Li trying to sell it like it has already knocked out four teeth, there's no way this kick could actually hit him. And nice junk shot, by the way.

Mini-Boss 3 – She-male Of Doom: After Chad’s explosion rips through the ship, Griffith gets a call advising that no one could have lived through that and that he should leave the ship immediately. Leaving Danielle and Frank alone with Kara and some random thug, he and Zhang do exactly that. But just as they leave, Alex wanders onto the scene, takes out the random thug, before giving his woman-beating tendencies free reign by engaging in a vicious fight against Kara. The greatest moment of the fight comes when at one point Kara, for reasons I’ll never know, grabs him by the cock. She doesn’t punch him in it, mind you. Just grabs it, which means that both female leads in this movie have been forced to touch his junk. And I have to totally believe that was JCVD’s idea when it came to the script. You can almost hear it in your head, can’t you? “Let’s have her touch my dick. No, no reason. I just want her to touch my dick. Now agree with me before I make you touch my dick. That’s what I thought. Hurray for my dick!” But anyways, eventually Alex stabs her with a knife that she produces, killing her just as Chad appears.

Final Bosses – A Battle Against Utter Disappointment: With everyone else dead, Griffith and Zhang try their best to flee the boat while the brothers take off in hot pursuit. As one would guess, since there are two brothers and two villains, they end up splitting up and each following a nemesis of their own. Alex races off after Zhang, for some reason leaving Danielle alone with Chad as they run after Griffith. When they eventually catch up to their prey, the fights involving both brothers are horribly, horribly uninteresting. First, Chad and Danielle follow Griffith into an area tightly packed shipping containers. They lose him, and eventually slowly walk into a small dead end. As they wonder what to do, Griffith fires up a forklift behind them and slowly begins to drive towards them while carrying a cargo container above their heads. With nowhere to go, all Chad can do is stuff Danielle into the one tiny hole between two of the containers that make up a side wall before running away and diving into the water behind him. Griffith then decides that the best thing to do is get down and stand by the water, firing his gun randomly into the water. But even better than this idiocy is that Chad then suddenly appears back at the controls of the forklift behind him. How the fuck he got up there, the movie doesn’t say. We’ll just say that he was picked up and flown there by a unicorn, because it makes as much sense as any other explanation. Just as Griffith turns and realizes his impending doom, Chad delivers on the anticipated disaster by dropping the container on him.

While all this is going on, Zhang and Alex end up at the top of a massive industrial crane, because yeah, why wouldn’t it be a good idea to climb up a couple of stories to an area where you can’t possibly escape when you’re being chased by someone determined to kill you? Once they both arrive at the top, Zhang blows a fire extinguisher in Alex’s face, temporarily blinding him while pulling a sword out of his cane. Remember how I said I’d laugh until I shit if Van Damme got blinded? Well, let’s just say I’ve got some laundry to do. This seems like a guaranteed death of Alex, but those of us who have seen Bloodsport know that JCVD’s no stranger to blind fighting, so no one is surprised when Alex doesn’t so much as hesitate to kick the shit out of Zhang until finally forcing his sword arm into a couple of industrial gears. And while basic brain function would dictate that his arms would be crushed flat or ripped off, this actually does little more than leave him with a bloody appendage. But regardless, it’s enough to neutralize the old man, leaving him to beg Alex to make a deal. The rebuttal, of course, comes in the form of Alex dropping Zhang over the side to his plummeting death.

I can't think of a shot to end the movie on that will haunt my dreams more.

And that, as they say, is that. With all the villains dead and everything right in the world, JCVD and JCVD meet up again, sharing a sweet face to face while forcing the blue screen budget of this movie into overdrive, before locking into a death grip hug of awesomeness that would put a grizzly to shame. Danielle and Frank both join them, of course, and as Alex embraces his girlfriend – a distant second on his romantic priority list behind fondling himself – they all share smiles. But while all this is so sickeningly sweet that it could only be reproduced with a few tons of high-fructose corn syrup, the real icing on the cake comes seconds later when Chad gives Alex the okay sign and it freezes on that to the sound of gunfire. FUCK YEAH.

Once again, I stand corrected.

The Verdict:

Donkey: The very basis for this entire film is astounding. They’re fighting to regain what was stolen from them…and it’s a goddamn tunnel? I don’t think anyone who was involved with making this movie has any idea how public utilities actually work. No private citizen or business can own a goddamn traffic tunnel in a civilized country. That’s simply not possible, or some eccentric CEO could just decide one day to cut off all access for no particular reason other than dancing in his own shit while singing Rebel Yell and proving that he’s goddamn insane. And even if you could actually own a tunnel, who the fuck would want it? Do you know how high the tolls on that motherfucker would have to be before you even made any money back? Those things aren’t exactly cheap to construct, so unless you’re charging $1,000 per car, you’re not going to see a profit for decades. I can’t wait for a sequel, where the brothers Van Damme battle an evil mastermind who has seized control of a municipal sewage processing plant. Everything about this movie is deliciously ridiculous, save the fighting itself which is rather disappointing. None of them felt epic, or able to stand up next to fighting a tiger before blocking an inferno with a Coke machine, if you will. I give this movie four cases of ball cleavage out of five silky junk grabs.

What We Learned:

Donkey: If JCVD were to be forced to imagine it, the only man that he could imagine a woman cheating on him with is him. I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s sounds just about right.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Sam Raimi’s first horrifyingly terrible contribution to the genre of superhero action movies, but certainly not the last, in…DARKMAN.

Back To The Main Page.

It's an American flag and it's got ninjas. What else could you want?

Donkey: If you’ve read much of this site, you know that whether you think it’s funny or not, it can truly be said that it takes a certain sense of humor to fight through the inevitable streams of tears and suicidal thoughts to laugh along with us on this epic journey of intense shittiness. But it’s not just movies that give us a good chuckle. Ironically shitty things can make us laugh from all kinds of places, and gifts have become another tradition among us. It began two years ago when amongst real gifts, I gave Blombo the truly legendary video game Sneak King. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it’s a video game for the Xbox 360 that was made for and distributed by Burger King, which cost me $4 with the purchase of a Whopper combo. And trust me, it was worth every penny and the inevitable heart failure that it cost me. The game stars their psychotically creepy mascot, charged with the mission of sneaking up and delivering hot tasty Burger King food to unsuspecting, yet hungry victims. If you’re wondering how long you could possibly hand out Whoppers before you questioned if there is a god, take comfort in the fact that you don’t just jump right in to handing out Whoppers. Oh hell no. You’ve got to earn your way to the Big Show, starting by dispensing hash browns and breakfast sandwiches. It might go without saying by now, but if you haven’t run out and bought this game by the time you’ve read this sentence, your life is not complete.

The tradition continued last year, as one of my Christmas gifts to Milobar again involved the Xbox 360. But for him, I managed to find something just as idiotic, while spending even less. While picking up a game for him that was actually good, I came across something that I had no choice but to buy: a wood panel system faceplate that was discounted down to a massive $1. You can’t put a price on the awesomeness that is having a video game system with fake wood paneling on the front, but if you had to, the price of $1 kicks it up to infinite sweetness. Needless to say, Milobar announced it as his favorite gift of the year.

Two weeks ago, the tradition came up once again without warning in the middle of a work day. You see, Milobar and I actually work at the same large corporation, and on this day he was apparently walking by a bookstore on a coffee break when he looked down at their discount table and saw a book that called out to him. It was marked at $5, making it a tempting purchase, but when he found out that it was actually discounted down to a single dollar, he couldn’t resist. He came back to work while I was in a meeting and left the book at my desk, waiting for me upon my return. I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I walked up, looked down at my keyboard, and found COACH: My World And Stay The Hell Out Of It: The Wit and Wisdom of Hayden Fox staring back at me. That’s right. Someone actually wrote a book about the sitcom Coach, starring Craig T Nelson. Not only did someone write a book about it, but it actually took three people to write this book, spouting the insanely terrible thoughts of a fictional character. While the gift itself is hilarious enough, actually reading it made it that much better. It only took me two diarrhea-filled trips to the toilet, which I suspect may have been caused by the reading material, to get through it. I could then say with absolute certainty that there hasn’t been a bigger waste of paper since the bible. But when I stopped and realized the truth of that statement, as in both cases I was reading the irrelevant words of a fictional character, whether it’s a coach on a football field or coach watching my every move from the clouds, I was led to a life changing revelation: this book is now my bible.

And it was only the power of my new holy text that got me through this week’s series of movies, my friends. But for the words of my new life coach, I may have been lost. Join me, as we live the pain again…

The Plot:

Donkey: This week we’re discussing all five American Ninja movies, simply because the alternative would be to spend five separate entries and therefore five consecutive weeks on the saga, which would result in a body of text that has killing power far more infinite than the famous video tape in The Ring. Quite frankly, that’s a fate that no one deserves. But it works out well that way, as all five movies share plots that are so goddamn similar that the production company should receive an official government grant for recycling. Simply put, every movie tells the story of our hero (either Joe, Sean, both of them, or some bizarre swapped version of them) as he battles an interchangeable villain who commands an army of ninjas, despite having nothing to do with ninjas, martial arts, or even being Asian himself. That villain is likely using biological research to either make money, conquer the world, or even just simply make more ninjas. It really doesn’t matter. Regardless, they’re an unspeakable evil that must be stopped, and only the power of questionable marital arts will do the trick.

Just as a disclaimer, the following discussion of all five movies is a lot like the series itself, which can described as nothing short of truly epic. So remember that even if it takes you an hour to read through it, that’s still nine hours of your life that we’re saving you from this bullshit. You’re welcome. Now let’s recount the horrors of our journey, while I lean on the wisdom of Sweet Hayden, praying that he’ll call the correct play to keep me safe from an offensive blitz…

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Oh, NOW I get it! An American flag and ninjas! Clever!

American Ninja

Donkey: Our truly epic saga begins with the original film, which has the noticeably distinct quality of a made-for-television movie. But that seems only appropriate as through the work of brilliant casting, it stars a made-for-television-infomercial actor, Michael Dudikoff, playing the title role of an American Ninja named Joe. He is a man of few words, but once he does open his mouth to reveal a remarkably high voice, we realize it’s probably for the best. Trained in the ancient arts of Ninjitsu by a reclusive Japanese soldier living in the jungle, he was given the single name of Joe because it was the only American name that that his sensei knew. But after years of being tutored in both deadly martial arts and the ultimate rimjob technique, an explosion separated the two and wiped out Joe’s memory, which makes sense since the only thing that might be more of an 80’s movie stereotype than ninjas is amnesia. After being found, brought back to civilization, and left to wander aimlessly through life, he was eventually criminally charged for nearly killing a man, quite likely after that man made fun of Joe’s feathered hair. As punishment, the judge decreed that he either be sent to jail, enlist in the army, or work as Jerry Seinfeld’s butler. Obviously being too pretty for prison and too dainty to clean a house, Joe chose the army. And as ridiculous as that premise for ending up in the army sounds, it’s even more ridiculous when his personnel file is later revealed to have his birth date, parents’ names, and next of kin all listed as “unknown”. I’m pretty sure that even under George Bush the Army wouldn’t let you in if they don’t at least know who the fuck you are. Otherwise a Russian spy could have just wandered up and asked to enlist, answering to his identity with, “Niet, comrade!”

Michael Dudikoff

We’re introduced to Joe in the opening scene of the movie as he stands by a military truck, away from his fellow soldiers who accidentally kicks their hacky sack near him. Being far too cool for school, he ignores their requests to pass it back and instead plays idly with a butterfly knife, which is exactly what I would call badass if I were six. They warn him that the Army is no place for loners, but that doesn’t occur to me as being a loner as much as it’s just being a dick.

Moments later the soldiers and Joe give up their stoner games and constipated posing, respectively, to form a convoy of trucks to escort expensive military gear and the Colonel’s modestly attractive daughter through the jungle. Of course they’re hijacked, first by rebel terrorists and then by ninjas. But when the villains try to prevent the Colonel’s daughter from escaping, Joe jumps into action, killing with a painfully unimpressive arsenal before escaping with the girl into the jungle.

I'm disappointed in you, but goddamn if that mustache doesn't make me smile.

Now that Joe has unleashed the full brunt of his full yawn-inducing force, news of his inadequacy ripples out in all directions. Back at Fort Smallcox, the Colonel is being briefed on the ambush when a black soldier named Jackson reveals that this was the work of ninjas. At the same time, the movie’s final boss character, an evil business man named Ortega, rebukes his Japanese head ninja, whom for lack of a better name we’ll simply call Hank, for allowing a truck to get away from their grasp, demanding that he kill the American Ninja that is responsible.

Once Joe finally delivers the daughter back to the military base, he’s treated like an AIDS dispensing leper by the Colonel and his fellow soldiers for playing hero and getting others killed, because apparently these soldiers aren’t actually expecting to ever have to fight anyone. I guess they just signed up to the corps for the gonorrhea. But more importantly, we learned a valuable lesson: never help a woman. If she’s in trouble, either join the rape line or stand back and give high fives to those who do, because only assholes try to help.

While Joe receives his morale flogging, Ortega shows off his completely autonomous plantation to the potential buyers of his hijacked military gear. After showing off the land, he moves to what every home should have: his ninja training facility. After watching over a hundred different colored ninjas work through exercises, Hank the Head Ninja or H2N if you will, disposes of six of his subordinates as a demo, killing the last one. Even if you have no sympathy for that faceless thug as a person, think of the ridiculous waste that is. They’ve already taken the time to train that guy, just to kill him for the sake of peacocking. The other point on interest described on the tour is his gardener, whom turns out to be Joe’s jungle sensei. Of course, no one knows that he’s a master ninja hiding amongst them, so it seems like an odd thing to point out. Here’s my ninja facility and, hey, there’s Pedro, my pool boy! Sweet, huh?

Hey, check out my sweet R2-D2 impression.

But now that we’ve met our hero, he needs the standard issue sidekick that comes with all 80′s action movies. But how do you give a friend to a loner? The answer comes when Joe’s hazing continues at the hands of0 Jackson, who calls him out in part for not being a team player, but mostly because his severe case of hat hair is making him cranky. It’s on! Once the fight starts, Joe disposes of Jackson with a couple really unimpressive throws before strangling him with a hose and then finishing the dueling stupidity off in grand fashion by putting a bucket on his head and motioning for Jackson to hit it with a stick. When the offer is obliged, Joe once again responds with a ridiculous throw. Easily beaten, Jackson then declares to everyone watching that hey, this Joe guy’s alright. The bond is now in place and continues to grow later while on trash duty, when Jackson insists that Joe had to be formally taught because he knows martial arts, so he therefore knows that Joe’s moves are “too perfect”. Fuck off. Were we watching the same fight? Joe finally reveals his story to Jackson, telling him of his amnesia. But just to make sure that no scene ends without a colon clenching groan, Joe sees the Colonel’s daughter in the distance and their eyes meet for a moment before Jackson makes fun of Joe for getting a boner.

I find your awkward and unjustified arrogance enticing, you average looking man.

As the Colonel’s daughter drives away from that mutual eye-fucking, she hatches herself a little scheme, demanding that Charlie, the driver and Joe’s platoon mate, turn the car around. As she begins to set it in motion, Jackson and Joe are cuddling like experimental high school girls when they are approached by Charlie, whom conspires with Jackson to send Joe for a surprise date. To get their in style, Joe borrows Jackson’s rad bike and jumps it over the base’s outer fence, landing in a way that ensured that the poor stuntman will never have children. Once Joe meets the Colonel’s daughter and realizes that he’s been set up, he reluctantly goes to dinner with her. But while they awkwardly avoid the reality that Joe wouldn’t know the first thing about being with a woman, Joe notices that his Sergeant and big boss Ortega are having dinner there as well. While I was hoping that it was a romantic evening for two, it turns out that the Sarge is actually crooked and Ortega demands that he kill Joe in retribution for his meddling.

The next morning the Sarge tries to do exactly that, assigning Joe to the motor pool where he is told to take a truck down to a dockside warehouse, which doesn’t seem like a suspicious assignment in the slightest. And of course, he goes there only to walk headlong into a trap filled with…bloodthirsty pirates! Nah, they’re still ninjas. He kills them one after the other without breaking his expression, let alone a sweat before heading back outside to discover that thieves are stealing his truck. After a disgustingly standard chase scene, Joe ends up under the moving truck and rides along as it’s taken to its destination, Ortega’s compound. Once inside, Joe learns that the cargo he was carrying, a really big gun, is set to trade hands with Ortega’s buyers tomorrow. He eventually escapes the compound and runs into the jungle while pursuing guards manage to somehow miss him with automatic weapons while firing from twenty feet away. But just as it seems like the villains might close the gap to the apparent two feet that they need to actually hit him, Joe finds his master, who shows Joe a secret escape path before he disappears. Seeing his prey escape once again, Ortega calls the Sarge, demanding that Joe must be killed immediately. So as soon as he gets back to base, Joe’s arrested. Enraged that his lifelong friend of ten minutes has been taken into custody, Jackson investigates to find out that Joe’s been charged with selling expensive military equipment. Not satisfied to leave things alone, Jackson tries and fails miserably to clear Joe’s name.

Deciding that night to take matters into his own hands, Hank the Head Ninja decides to dispose of Joe himself. Once he’s snuck up to the stockade, cut the power, and killed the guards, he then uses a flashbang to somehow open Joe’s cell door, but falls for the old pillow-under-the-sheets trick. Taking advantage of the distraction, Joe escapes outside and ends up fighting H2N in a car yard. But just as Hanky’s about to land the killing blow on Joe, more military guards show up in jeeps. Exposed, H2N flees while Joe sneaks back to Jackson for help.

Jackson agrees, of course, meeting Joe with a Jeep later, along with the Colonel’s daughter, where the two of them convince Joe to talk to her father. Joe relents, but the Colonel, of course, doesn’t believe them. He calls back to the base and moments later the military police show up with the Sarge. Not ready to go quietly, Joe dives out a window and gets to the jeep, taking off before anyone can catch him. They chase and shoot at him as he leads them to Ortega’s in another boring chase scene that has only one redeeming moment: after knocking the jeeps off the road one at a time until only the Sarge is following, Joe pushes him off the road like he did the others. But rather than just coming to a indignant rest in the ditch, the Sarge’s jeep goes down a five foot embankment, drives along flat land, and hits a tree gently, which for some reason causes it to fucking EXPLODE. Thank God I wasn’t drinking cream soda at the time that I saw this, or the combined assault on my hilarity and gag reflexes could have killed me.

Moments later when Ortega shows up at the Colonel’s home, he demands that the shipment be stopped, revealing that he’s every bit as corrupt as the Sarge. But while Ortega keeps the Colonel busy, denying his request, Hank breaks in and kidnaps the Colonel’s daughter.

Man, I'm glad I didn't end up taking that job in the Wal-Mart Garden Center after all.

Back at Ortega’s lair, Joe breaks in just to discover his old master. He takes Joe to his personal quarters where the master makes him remember everything, which of course happens through a series of flashbacks. The master then says that the time has come for Joe’s final lesson. First he shows Joe an arsenal, then talks about ninja magic, specifically the ability to seem invisible which causes fear and paralysis in your opponents. I smell badly executed and poorly executed special effects in our future!

Apparently taking the entire night to meditate and possibly run off a batch of baby batter, Joe wanders out of his master’s house in black ninja gear the next morning to start the final confrontation just in time to see a truck being backed up to the compound. The buyers arrive and the arrangements are made when suddenly Joe begins to fire arrows harmlessly in their direction from atop their cargo truck. Everyone opens fire on him immediately, but once again they manage to miss him with fully automatic assault rifles. After he flees from sight, they pull out the Colonel’s daughter and demand his surrender. Joe emerges in compliance, only to be surrounded by ninjas. Just then a smoke bomb goes off and suddenly he’s standing back to back with his master. With his sensei at his side, they’re sure to be unstoppable! Well, not so much. Of course, they kill every last ninja, but then his master disappears without warning. Just then Happy Hank the Ninja Master throws a knife at Joe, a smoke bomb goes off and the master appears in front of Joe just in time to be hit by the knife. So much for that reunion. Just then Jackson and soldiers show up as a ninja sounds the compound’s alarm. While ninjas and soldiers fight, Joe and H2N square off with one another in a battle featuring an outstanding moment where they’re both climbing ropes. Hungry Hungry Hank gets to the top of his first and shoots fire from his hands, burning Joe’s rope. So…ninjas can shoot fire? Fortunately Joe manages to grab the other side just before it snaps and saves himself from falling to his doom.

Hey, how tall are you? Come on, let's go back to back.

With all this commotion, the buyers try to leave and Ortega shoots them with absolutely no reprisal. I guess two criminals taking part in an illegal sale didn’t think to bring men of their own when going into a ninja training facility. The military then flood into the courtyard, so Ortega takes the Colonel’s daughter hostage himself and backs up towards the chopper. The Colonel tries to run up and stop him just for Ortega to shoot him dead. But before he can leave go, Ortega says to wait for the Hankster. Right about then, Mr. Hanky is shooting a fucking laser at Joe, which causes a pot to explode. And really, why not add a laser at this point? It fits, right? He and Joe finally face off for the last time in a fountain where H2N is eventually killed. Joe then runs up and grabs a bar at the front of the helicopter while it tries to leave. Ortega climbs out to try to shoot him, somehow failing to do so while Jackson pulls out the missile launcher they were trying to sell to the buyers. Joe finally reaches in and grabs the daughter, jumping down to the roof of Ortega’s compound just before Jackson shoots and blows up the helicopter. In his moment of glory, Joe then literally drops the Colonel’s daughter down three stories to Jackson’s waiting arms before he takes off his mask and looks dramatically into the distance for a minute before cutting to credits.

In the words of Hayden Fox, from the chapter on football: “Watching young cheerleaders grow is yet another satisfaction.” Amen, coach.

Hey, you know what we should put on the cover? A karate demonstration.

American Ninja II: The Confrontation

The second chapter in our five part series of pain sets the trend that will define the series, which is one of glaring contradiction. On the one hand, a very tired formula is established as the plots are so interchangeable that it’s hard to remember what movie you’re even watching, while at the same time continuity of some of the most basic concepts is very deliberately pissed on. That can be seen quite easily in this movie with Joe, our beloved American Ninja who in the last movie was known by the single name of “Joe” because he didn’t know his real name and that was the only American name that his sensei knew to give him. In this movie, he introduces himself as Joe Armstrong. So where did the Armstrong come from? Don’t bother to ask because the only answer that you’ll find is the laughing balls of Michael Dudikoff dangling in your face.

With that in mind, the film starts with three tragically dressed Marines on motorbikes racing along an island coastal highway like they’ve never heard of the concept of oncoming traffic before they eventually stop at a bar where two of the three are beaten by local thugs and dragged away by ninjas while the third man, named Taylor, watches. What a great start.

The first thing we're going to have to do is issue you two some clothes that make you look more like douche bags.

Now that the initial unpleasantness is out of the way, the awesome meter jumps several notches as our old friends Jackson and Joe arrive on a plane. From there they are driven to the local military base, which is basically a resort filled with surfers and chicks in bikinis. They’re taken inside and introduced to the commanding officer, a dude named Wild Bill who explains that they try to dress as little like Marines as possible because there are local factions out to get them. That’s funny, I didn’t think Marines would be scared of an island gang with a Napoleon complex, but once again that just goes to show that these movies think most military men are pussies. He goes on to explain that a kid working at the base had reported seeing guys in black pajamas, so like the Ghostbusters, these two have been called in to take care of yet another ninja infestation.

But now that they’ve arrived, it’s time to get down to some serious military business as our heroes are invited out for a little water skiing. They agree, of course, and take off with a small band of Marines in a speedboat driven by the nefarious Taylor. But after the group decides to head to an island where there are “a lot of babes”, and hopefully ones who don’t mind being hit on by men who have the vocabulary of a nine year old, they simply end up cruising along the water until everyone but Taylor is fast asleep. How far away was that fucking island? With no one looking, Taylor once again plays saboteur, pulling a fuse to kill the engine and beaching the boat on a small island. The others wake up and try to solve the problem for about two minutes before saying fuck it and deciding to go for a swim. They all head out except for Joe whom performs the very simple fix required on the boat before sitting and contemplating his next move. But the trap is sprung, so ninjas suddenly come running along the beach.

There's nothing quite as brave as taking on a man with a sword while wearing short shorts.

Without asking any questions, Joe runs straight into a group of boulders and starts to kick some ass, beating them off faster than a nickel hooker needing to feed a parking meter. Soon Jackson and the others come in from their swim and notice Joe’s not there, so Jackson immediately joins in the fight while the others stay in the boat, acting more like Girl Guides than Marines. The two greatest moments of this brawl come when Joe takes out a ninja perched twenty feet above him by throwing a stick at him, which barely hits the guy in the stomach and yet topples him like he’s been hit by a sniper rifle, and when another ninja fires an arrow at him, which he catches out of the midair. But despite their badassery, when reinforcements come, Joe and Jackson decide it’s time to split, running to the edge of a small cliff and jumping down into the waiting boat.

As our two heroes report back to Wild Bill, confirming that they’re got a ninja hive on their hands, Taylor gets on a phone and talks to someone whom declares that he wants Joe and Jackson dead. With those orders in mind, Taylor sneaks into Joe’s room and asks for help, giving him a place in town to meet him tomorrow.

Perfect. NOW you look like a douche.

The next day, Joe shows up at the bar as requested, in all his popped-collar-and-rolled-up-jean-jacket-sleaved glory. He beats on a the same group of thugs from the beginning of the film before going inside the surprisingly busy bar. I’m either grossly misinformed about the stigma of drinking at noon, or this island if filled with goddamn alcoholics. Joe meets Taylor in a room upstairs where Taylor confesses that he led them into that trap on the island but didn’t want to. He had no choice because the Lion has his wife; the Lion apparently being a millionaire who made his money on drugs and is doing biological research on Blackbeard Island. Joe then beats the shit out of the same thugs again who come wandering up to the room just before Taylor swears that he hears someone at the window, creeping over to it and stumbling back a few seconds later with a very loosely and shallowly impaled spear in his chest, possibly the dumbest fucking death by ninja method that I could imagine.

With nothing left to do, Joe returns to the base where the head of the local police listens as Joe recounts the story that Taylor had told him only to dismiss it as nonsense. And while I couldn’t blame anyone for not believing a thing Michael Dudikoff says, when Wild Bill suggests they investigate anyways, the cop declares that’s impossible, that he would need a special warrant to search Blackbeard Island. And the movie was so concerned with the cop delivering that speech in a way that isn’t completely obvious of his corruption that they completely missed an outstanding consistency flaw. The cop gets up and bids the men farewell, putting his hat on as he walks to the door. It then cuts to a shot of him putting his hat on again and opening the door to leave. I guess editing is either the most expensive part of a movie, or else this particular one was employing a goddamn chimp in that position. Once the cop is gone, Wild Bill exclaims that all this bullshit is really “getting on his tits” before telling Joe and Jackson that they’ll be coming with him to a reception at the Governor’s mansion tomorrow.

These 'villains' don't look near as scary as that monobrow snaggle tooth motherfucker over their shoulder.

They arrive at that party the next day where Jackson tries his untalented hand at picking up a local chick exceptionally badly while Joe notices the arrival of the film’s two villains, Leo “The Lion” Burke and his henchman, Tojo. But right after they arrive, some random chick runs up and attacks the Lion, screaming that he’s a criminal, imploring someone to arrest him because he has her father. As she gets taken away, Wild Bill quietly dispatches Joe and Jackson to follow in his car. They do just that, ending up back to the same goddamn bar for a third time. In a sickening bout of déjà vu, Joe and Jackson go in to find themselves squared off against the same fucking thugs that Joe has beaten handily on his own twice already. And rather than do it a third time, Joe goes to rescue the girl, leaving Jackson to fight the whole gang. Thanks Joe, you fucker. But it’s no problem, as they all pile on Jackson just for him to toss them off with the sound of bowling pins being knocked down. Bowling is so ninja! The fight then goes way too long, ending with the girl running out a side door just as Tojo walks in. Joe and Jackson take a moment to glare at Tojo before trying to chase the girl, only to run outside and find Wild Bill’s car being picked apart by thieves. Defeated, they roll off with what’s left of it and return to the Governor’s mansion to pick up Wild Bill. After they leave, Tojo arrives and tells the Lion that the girl escaped because of the American Ninja. Unsurprised, Leo says that he knows what to do and makes it clear that he wants Joe taken alive.

After taking an hour or two to rest and wonder why he couldn’t have been trained by a rogue accountant in the jungle all those years ago, Joe asks the local kid on the base, Toto, for help either finding the mystery girl from the party or doing a cover version of Africa. Toto chooses the former, taking him to a back alley and pointing at a door. But as Joe discovers that the girl named Alicia, the daughter of the doctor that the Lion is forcing to work for him, is there and willing to take his usually ineffective help, the impossible happens and ninjas attack. Another extremely uninteresting brawl ensues, but at least it meets the standard of stupidity set when Joe catches a blowdart shot at Alicia in midair like it’s a goddamn paper airplane. Once the quota has been filled for ninjas that get knocked out with startling ease, another gaggle led by Tojo arrives. But since we all know by know that the formula doesn’t permit Joe to have his showdown with the head ninja until the end of the movie, no one is surprised when Toto pulls up in a truck, allowing Joe and Alicia to escape.

Once they’re in a truck and driving away, it should be fair to assume that the insanity would stop, right? If you said yes, you really haven’t been paying attention so far. After Joe introduces himself and explains that they need to get to Blackbeard Island, Alicia tells him to turn around as they’re going the wrong way. But instead of turning around like a normal person, he pulls a massive u-turn into a pile of garbage before peeling off. Whoa…easy there, asshole. You don’t have to get there in ten minutes. Now that they’re heading in the right direction, they see a ninja standing in their path. Happy to simply run him over, they keep driving as he jumps over their truck and lands in the back, punching out the back window and grabbing Joe. He ends up being knocked over the back only to hook the box of the truck with a grappling hook, and being dragging behind the truck on the road for a long, long time. But with either magic or the love of Jesus, that ninja somehow makes it onto the roof, punching out the windshield somehow before Joe hits the breaks and sends him flying. As they try to run him over again, he ends up on the goddamn hood. Fuck, this guy is way more impressive than Joe. Finally they jump out, leaving the ninja on the hood as the truck flies into a building and explodes. Joe, Alicia, and Toto all gather, totally unhurt from jumping out of a speeding truck, where Joe tells Toto to go back to find Jackson and tell him that they’ve gone ahead to the island. Once the kid leaves, Alicia advises that they’ll have to wait until after dark to sneak past the patrols.

While they pass the time, Alicia explains that her mother died of cancer, causing her father to abandon his research into new penis lengthening techniques to dedicate himself to finding a cure for cancer. He was making progress and governments were investing in his research when everyone suddenly withdrew their funds. I’m going to guess that it was because they found out that he was spending their money on a Pog collection since they never explain why. It was then that The Lion turned up and offered money, so her father took it in desperation. But instead of finding the cure for cancer, he ended up being used by the Lion to create…SUPER NINJAS! Wow.

Behold, my army! If they fail at protecting my empire, I may still be able to use them to produce on Off Broadway show!

Meanwhile in the Blackbeard Island Lab, the Lion gives a speech to a group of military allies about his success and before introducing his plan for protecting that success: a room full of super ninjas. But since we all know there’s no point in having a room full of ninjas if you don’t use it, he motions for them to give a demo. A group of ninjas gets up and does a really unimpressive kata before Tojo gets up and kills every last one of them. That’s goddamn ridiculous and even worse than the same scene in the first movie. At least in the last one they just killed one dude, whereas here Tojo’s killing dozens of his own men. And for what? To prove that the super ninjas are no match for a regular man, thus nullifying the entire idea of SUPER NINJAS? Bravo, douche bags. Anyways, at that point the Lion declares that Alicia’s father, Professor Sanborne, will show his allies how the ninjas are made.

As The League of Doom wanders to the lab for that exciting lecture, Joe and Alicia finally arrive on the island. The sneak up to the perimeter fence where Joe cuts his way through with a set of wirecutters, which seems very unninja-like to me. Moments later, two guard ninjas find the hole in the fence hole and investigate, only to have Joe kick their ass and drag them into the bushes where I’m assuming he rapes them.

Wait, I didn't sign on to recreating the cast of Magnum PI!

Moments later, Joe and Alicia sneak there way into the lab in ninja outfits that they stole from Joe’s rape victims. They find their way to the Master Laboratory, which is clearly labeled with a brightly lit sign, and go inside just as the Lion and her father come in from another door. They follow them into a room filled with dudes in cryobeds, which I just can’t take seriously when one of the podmen has a mustache, where Professor Sanborne explains the process of making SUPER NINJAS with a little too much enthusiasm for a man who’s supposed to be an unwilling participant. Once he’s finished, they take him away while the Lion keeps yammering on about some bullshit. Joe and Alicia slip away to follow her father. Once Joe tickle fights his ninja transporters and frees him, The Professor tells them that there’s no time to lose, as the Lion is shipping five billion dollars worth of heroin to the US tomorrow. Wow, how completely off topic! The Professor then points Joe in the direction of the Marines captured at the beginning of the film. Seeing his chance for glory and more prison sex, Joe tells Alicia to take the Professor to the boat and leave if he’s not there in an hour. Once they leave, Joe decides it’s time to ladle out more bowls of piping hot crazy, so he sits down and meditates, having flashbacks of his origins from the first movie. The identical flashbacks recap his master’s speech on ninja magic that allows him to disappear, at the end of which a flashbang goes off in front of him for absolutely no reason before he finally rises and trots off. I think I just shit my pants.

The movie takes a quick break from Joe, focusing on Jackson and the rest of the Marines as they show up and start killing anything that moves. But since that gets boring pretty damn fast, we turn back to something slightly less boring as Joe manages to free the hostage Marines. After introducing himself and leading them out of the cell, Joe turns to a door and asks where it goes. They tell him that it leads to The Arena, which you would think would not be a good place to go if you’re trying to sneak around. Instead he strolls in like a rubberhead, leading them through the darkness as if inviting the inevitable doom. And that’s exactly what comes a moment later when the lights suddenly turn on to reveal the Lion there with Alicia. At this point I can’t help but wonder, how long was The Lion going to just stand there in the dark? But while I ponder that, SUPER NINJAS begin to fill the Arena, attacking Joe and the Marines who manage to hold their own for a while, despite how fucking retarded that is when you consider that these are ordinary Marines who should be no match for SUPER NINJAS. The Marines finally begin to fall, leaving Joe to finish the last of the ninjas himself. Seeing his army defeated by one man, the Lion flees, leaving Tojo behind to kill Joe. Also remembering that he had a cake in the oven, the Professor tells Alicia that there’s something he must do alone and leaves as well.

As Jackson and the rest of the Marines fight their way into the lab with little resistance, The Lion runs to the lab to find Professor Sanborne already there, wiring his manpods to explode. The Lion tries to stop him, but Professor Sanborne blows the charges, engulfing them both in flames.

Back in the Arena, Joe and Tojo finally begin their duel. After a very stereotypical and unremarkable few minutes, Joe nearly defeats Tojo when suddenly Tojo whips out a shotgun and starts shooting at him, miraculously missing him from ten feet away. After he fires at nothing for a few minutes and running out of ammo and thoroughly wasting our time, Joe finally pops back up and the sword battle resumes. In an attempt to end it with some shred of drama, they stand off, posing at one another for ten goddamn minutes before they charge and take a single swipe. Clearly on the losing end of that even though we can’t really tell how or why, Tojo stumbles around to try to engage Joe one last time only to be cut down for good. With victory finally at hand, Joe takes off his mask and looks up at Alicia for an uncomfortably long time before the Marines finally make their way into the Arena. And since everything’s over and they can stop acting like pussies, the captives Marines that had fallen and left Joe to fight alone then get up off the floor and go join their comrades. The scene finally ends with Jackson giving Joe a thumbs up.

Despite the fact that the credits should already be rolling, allowing us to move on to something more interesting like inspecting our balls for tumors, the movie then takes us to a party scene where Jackson says good bye to the random chick that he was trying to bang way back at the beginning of the movie. At the same time, Toto reminds Joe that he still owes him five bucks for finding Alicia for him, prompting Joe to give Toto the gift of a Swiss Army knife. As he smiles at the fucking random gift, Joe, Jackson, and a bunch of kids begin walking towards a plane, heading God knows where.

And to quote the Sweet Hayden, from the chapter on love: “Luther loves animals too.” Bravo, coach. Your wisdom knows no bounds.

The third movie, starring...wait, who?

American Ninja III: Blood Hunt

Apparently we’re not the only ones who barely made it through the second chapter of the series alive, as the third installment is noticeably missing the sweet Michael Dudikoff, replacing him with a dude named David Bradley that I’ve never heard of before or since. Will Dudikoff’s absence kill the franchise, or prove to be its ticket to legitimacy? I’ll go ahead and blow the suspense by saying neither. It’s the same bucket of baboon shit, just with different flies circling it.

Our story begins with the origin of our new hero. Sometime in the part, two children who remind me far too much of the clothes that my parents made me wear in the 80′s, attend a kickboxing tournament, cheering from the stands. But unbeknownst to them, a car full of criminals heads to the stadium, looking for trouble. One of the kids, named Sean, heads back into the dressing rooms to see his father before he takes part in the main event, just as the criminals rush in and hold up the stadium’s back office, looking for a piece of the famously massive karate money. As they run from the office with their $35 prize, they run into Sean and briefly consider taking him hostage. As he leaps in to try to save his son, the criminals end up shooting Sean’s dad. They flee the scene immediately, leaving Sean to sit and watch his father’s body go cold, with that image burning into his mind, causing him to go on to become…Daredevil! Well, not quite. He’s actually he’s taken away by his father’s sensei, Izumo, to spend the rest of his childhood years learning the mystic martial arts in a montage that seems to take as many goddamn years to get through. Once it comes to an end, he’s truly become an American Ninja. With his task complete, Izumo sends Sean out into the world to fulfill his destiny. It sounds grand, but I’m willing to bet his destiny is to be a pastry chef running a failing bakery in southern Illinois.

Oh God...it's 1987 again...I'm back in the Sears Portrait Studio getting my picture taken with my brothers...NO!

How does a guy who looks like Patrick Duffy get a nickname like the Cobra? From a sizeable GI Joe collection.

With our protagonist now established, the movie turns its attention to its principal antagonists. We once again meet the two criminal masterminds who held up that karate tournament, Dr Saxon or “The Cobra” as his slow pitch team would call him, and General Andreas. From some lab somewhere on an island, because God knows we haven’t seen enough of those in these movies so far, The Cobra gives a lecture to terrorist leaders about scientifically focused terrorism. It sounds pretty fancy, but he gives no details whatsoever, so it’s pretty much a complete waste of time.

At the airport of that same island, the ninja hero Sean arrives and is met by our old friend, Jackson, whom apparently knows Sean even though they never say how. After the two of them meet and are joined by some obnoxious blonde guy named Dex, we discover that all kinds of martial artists are gathering on the island for a World Championship of Karate. Damn, I was hoping for Hyper Deathmatch Elimination Monopoly, myself.

While the three men leave the airport playing a fine game of grabass, a woman named Chan Lee watches them from afar before reporting back to Dr Saxon and General Andreas, pointing out Sean specifically as a possible test subject while handing them the issue of a karate magazine that he appears on the cover of. Nice.

Sean's traditional training is very apparent in the track pants that he wears with his gi.

Not fucking around with anything like character development, the movie jumps straight to the tournament, which is officially opened by General Andreas before proceeding into, what else, a shitty demonstration. Once it finally ends, Sean takes to the ring, facing off against a British champ. The match is short and as dull as the commentary that we’re forced to listen to as it plods along, eventually ending with a victory for Sean.

Apparently the tournament was one goddamn fight, as we’re then taken straight out into the street where Sean is walking with Jackson and Dex again. The find some women who look like they may have extremely low standards, so Dex tries to get them all laid, introducing Jackson as Powerhouse Jackson, quite possibly one of the greatest names I’ve ever heard. As they sit and talk to ladies at an outdoor cafe, Sean sees men in suits throw another into a car and take off in the background. Seeing as he’s just a karate champion and in no way affiliated with any police organization, Sean decides to pursue in a taxi for some goddamn reason, ending up in a hotel where he finds his sensei quietly sitting in one of the rooms. But before he can figure out what the hell’s going on, ninjas attack, keeping him busy while Izumo gets dragged away. He fights an endless stream of disposable ninjas, working his way through a factory, over a rooftop, and then out to random docks where two ninjas knock him into the water. After some ridiculous underwater fighting which somehow ends with Sean killing the two ninjas with mere punches, he makes his way back to Jackson and Dex. Recounting his tale and revealing to them that he’s a ninja, Jackson responds to the news of a ninja attack with, “not again”. Fuck, tell me about it, Jackson. After Sean declares that finding Master Izumo is more important to him than the tournament, Jackson and Dex agree to help him, forming an alliance more useless than cotton candy teaming up with delicious fudge to battle tooth decay.

As Chan Lee reports back to Dr Saxon with the news that Sean fell for the Master Izumo disguise, she explains that he was too good and got away. Dr Saxon tells her that he has every confidence in her and to keep trying. That’s surprisingly understanding for an evil fiend. Are you sure he’s not actually just a high school guidance counselor?

Damn! I thought cruising the slums was a surefire way to AVOID trouble!

We join the Three Shitheads of Fortune again as they wander through a slum for no reason whatsoever where they’re ambushed by ninjas. Just before they spread out and begin their fighting, Jackson complains that he thought he’d stop having to fight ninjas after leaving Joe back in the army. Hey, nice shout out! And speaking of shout outs, as our heroes move to engage their enemies, they pass by graffiti on the wall that says, “Kilroy was here”. What? A fucking Styx reference? Are you kidding me? Granted it would be awesome if Powerhouse Jackson kicked everyone’s ass while singing Mr. Roboto, but otherwise that’s just insane. After another battle with the signature lack of finesse that we’ve come to expect from this series takes place, Dex spots a couple of ninjas fleeing the scene and running to a gated building marked East Bay Laboratories. Sean wearily moans that this is all too convenient. Actually, considering the story so far, I’d say it’s less convenient and more bullshit, myself.

To get help in the face of what he thinks is a larger conspiracy, Sean visits the Minister’s Secretary. The Minister of what, you ask? How about the Minister of Pants? Good enough. When Sean asks about Master Izumo, she assures him that no Japanese man has entered the country. So just to recap that statement, a World Karate tournament is being held on that island and not one Japanese guy showed up. Unconvinced, Sean says he has reason to believe that Izumo’s being held at East Bay Laboratories, but again she assures him that Dr Saxon is there doing the important work of manufacturing drugs before brushing him off, saying that she’s too busy too busy to deal with this. Sean finally leaves, but as he goes, it’s clear that while her mouth is telling him to leave, her eyes are begging him to tame her wild hair with his pug fugly charms.

Seriously dude, close your legs. We can see your skidmarks, for God's sake.

As the three genital crab farms once again reunite on a beach, Sean informs them of his failure while we have to spend the entire shot staring at Jackson’s taint. Just to waste everyone’s time, Jackson decides to visit the local cops and plead a similar case about East Bay Labs, only to be similarly dismissed.

Speaking of East Bay Labs, we return there once again as Dr Saxon gives the second part in his fourteen part lecture on germ warfare while standing in front of five men on platforms who are wearing banana hammocks. He finishes his speech by asking for three more days, promising that he’ll eventually give a demonstration on the greatest advancement in scientific history. Trust me, folks, when I tell you that he will. Seriously.

We return to our heroes again as they finally decide on a method of breaking in to the mysterious labs. They travel to a dump in the middle of nowhere, not bothering to explain how they know it’s there, where they break into a welded pile of various scrap metal that would be generous to describe as a shed and steal two powergliders. Moments later we see Sean and Dex flying in these things, as apparently that’s common knowledge that I’m just not aware of, while Jackson follows along beneath them in a truck. To add completely unnecessary drama, the fuel line on Dex’s powerglider bursts, forcing him to land. But since the road is too rough, he has no choice but to land on the back of the Jackson’s truck while he drives. Sean talks him through it, offering obvious and in no way helpful tips while Dex drops onto Jackson’s truck.

Flying on his own now, Sean breaks into the lab. He sneaks around until he finds everyone gathered for, what else, a fucking karate demonstration being put on by a room full of ninjas, highlighted by Chan Lee taking on a series of them. While that’s going on, Sean breaks in fights a series of ninja guards, only to be tased into unconsciousness. He awakens sometime later in the company of Dr Saxon who reveals that the tournament was a scam to draw him there, which seems absolutely unnecessarily elaborate for such a simple goal. Finally Sean’s taken away and put in the lab’s jail cell, a prerequisite of all labs.

As Sean sits in his cell while Jackson and Dex wait outside, he goes to his door to come face to face with Chan Lee. She tells Sean that his life is in terrible danger, which isn’t obvious from the fact that he’s sitting in a fucking cell, asking who else knows about Izumo. Sean tells her before asking what’s going on. She says that she doesn’t know, but that she’s going to find out. So she’s helped Dr Saxon build and train an army of ninjas only to now turn against him…why?

Moments later, Dr Saxon meets with the woman with whom Sean spoke earlier, the Secretary to the Minister. She attempts to bribes The Cobra, telling him that she knows something is going on here, so he offers her a well paid job to shut her up. She accepts the offer, thus giving me visions of extremely awkward office Christmas parties to come. But to avoid that, Dr Saxon makes arrangements for her to be killed, which are put into motion quite literally as she steps out of the building and drives away, only to be followed by a car with a man in plain clothes and a ninja in the front seats. A notably terrible and slow speed chase scene occurs, culminating with her knocking their car into a pile of barrels and crates that explodes as their car bursts out of them. The man and ninja jump out of the car just before it explodes, while the Secretary pulls off a fake face to reveal Chan Lee underneath.

Back at the labs, Sean is once again brought back to the lab where the five dudes are still standing motionless platforms on platforms while wearing tiny, tiny bikini briefs. But brief is also what his visit is, as Dr Saxon injects Sean with something and tells his men to get rid of him.

Outside, Dex and Jackson continue to stand around like jackasses when they’re approached by Chan Lee, who tells them that the time to act is now. She explains that The Cobra is holding Sean and is ready to kill him. She further explains that Sean will be injected with a virus to prove how deadly it is to General Andreas. So they trapped him with an elaborate plan just to kill him with a virus? That makes no goddamn sense, but whatever. Having heard enough, Jackson agrees to follow Chan Lee down to the docks just as Sean is being dropped off there. The three of them fight their way onto a ship to save him, making their way down into its depths where they find Sean and General Andreas waiting with a gun. Regaining consciousness, Sean kicks the gun out of his hands and kills him while having flashbacks of Andreas killing his father as a child. Now that he’s safe, they tell explain to Sean that has been injected with a virus and must get to the antidote. But he insists that he must find Izumo before that, prompting Chan Li to finally reveal to him that she was Izumo the whole time.

They sneak back to the labs together where she once again uses her ancient ninja ability called Insujitsu or some shit like that to enter the lab as the secretary. And just to be clear, this ancient ninja art of disguise involves fake rubber masks. That’s so ancient and powerful! While she makes her way in, Sean tells Dex that either he or Jackson has to kill him if he doesn’t get the vaccine in time. I’m going to guess that the virus that he’s been infected with will either turn him into a werewolf or Michael Dudikoff, either of which is a fate worse than death. Agreeing with me, Dex eventually nods in acknowledgement. They rejoin Jackson and proceed to break in, killing all kinds of ninjas and guards while Chan Lee continues to fight her way through the building.

Chan Lee was about to leave when she was suddenly struck by an mysterious urge for cocktail wienies.

After being informed of Chan Lee’s treachery and General Andreas’ death, Dr Saxon puts his ninjas on alert before heading to the room where, for fuck’s sake, there are still those same five dudes standing around in their underwear, only to discover Chan Lee trying to find the antidote or vaccine or whatever the hell it is, still disguised as the secretary. Saxon calls her out, so she finally pulls off the mask and confronts him, just in time for his assistant to shoot her.

Elsewhere in the lab, the Three Amigos continue to fight ninjas on their way inside. Jackson fights a group of ninjas with sword, clearly sharing our impatience for this whole ordeal to end as he shouts at the last ninja in his way to, “die already!” But while he battles boredom, the other two are shot at by two ninjas with bows and arrows. Sean catches the first two arrows out of mid air, throwing them back and killing the ninjas. But before his killing blow hits home, another arrow hits Dex in the chest, killing him instantly and giving him an exit from the movie every bit as meaningless as his role was in the first place. Meanwhile Jackson runs into Dr Saxon’s assistant as he tries to escape with the antidote. Naturally, Jackson takes it and kills him, heading off to meet Sean in the Five Penis Lab just as cops begin to show up and fight ninjas in the parking lot, adding that final ingredient of random stupidity to this ass flavored stew.

Speaking of the Five Penis Lab, Sean finally makes it there to find Chan Lee’s body. As he mourns for the person he knew for 12 seconds, Saxon walks in to gloat in victory. But Sean ignores him and rational logic, entering a state of power meditation while he hears his master’s voice and a light shines down on him. He gets up once he’s finished, apparently healed, and confronts Saxon again. But this time, Saxon is ready for him, showing off what has got to be the single greatest invention in scientific history. He hits a regular switch on a table which turns off the room’s lights. They turns back on a moment later, revealing that the five men in their underwear have been replaced by five ninjas in red outfits. That’s AWESOME! I need a ninja switch in my house. Of course, it’s all for naught as Sean disposes of them rather easily. He then turns to fight The Cobra as unexplained smoke starts to spill all over the floor. But seeing as how Dr Saxon got the nickname The Cobra even though he looks like the type of guy that couldn’t beat a teddy bear in a boxing match, he’s knocked out pretty damned fast. Just then Jackson runs in with the antidote, which Sean says he doesn’t need anymore. You know, I realize that you think your meditation was pretty badass, but you might want to take that just in case, shithead. After The Cobra gets up for the obligatory last rush only to be kicked back down, Sean and Jackson declare that it’s time to go home, walking out of the room arm in arm while Jackson tells Sean that if they’re going to continue to be friends, they need to fight other things because he’s fought ninjas way too long. Once again, asshole, you have no idea how right you are.

As the prophet Hayden Fox would say, in the chapter on sex: “Are you as sweaty as I am?” Your wisdom knows no bounds, coach.

You know what would be awesome? Both American Ninjas in one movie! No, wait...that wouldn't.

American Ninja IV: The Annihilation

As we wonder how the hell anyone could justify making a fourth film in this series of cinematic shit stains, the answer comes in the casting, as this promises to be the greatest of them all by starring both the outstanding Michael Dudikoff and David Bradley. That’s right: both ninjas, together at last, giving us a reunion that nobody asked for! And once again the series revels in its inconsistency. In this movie Sean and Joe are somehow old friends, despite giving no background as to why that would be the case since it wasn’t even remotely hinted at in the last movie. And instead of being a random karate champion, Sean is now a CIA agent, like Joe, even though Joe wasn’t a fucking CIA agent the last time we saw him either. Goddamn, I’m surprised that they’re both not astronauts fighting ninjas in space.

This tale begins with a group of soldiers running through the woods while being stalked by ninjas. They end up fighting out in the open plain where the military men are killed one by one, which seems pretty ridiculous since ninjas shouldn’t be much of a threat in the open when pitted against automatic guns, before the four remaining men are captured while trying to get away in a boat.

From there we cut to a wedding where Sean is the best man as his friend Carl is about to get married. That’s right, Sean’s old buddy Carl! You know Carl, right? No, because he wasn’t in the last movie? Well shut up and go with it. But wouldn’t you know it, the whole thing has to come to a crashing halt when Sean and Carl’s beepers go off, calling them away to an emergency. They get back to a CIA office and are briefed on the situation. Colonel Mulgrew, a madman who hates Americans and has been helping a Sheik train his fighters develop a nuclear device small enough to carry in a suitcase. The CIA had sent in Delta Force commandos to wipe them out, but as we saw in the previous scene, they didn’t exactly succeed. The CIA then received tapes showing the dead and the only four remaining soldiers, explaining that they will be killed unless the US pays fifty million and releases the Sheik’s comrades from various jails. As they watch the tape, Sean recognizes that the ninjas known as the Japanese Red Faction Army are the ones holding the prisoners. Sure, I suppose that’s supposed to be impressive. Their boss explains that in a matter of days the media will get a hold of these developments which will force the president to pay or send in bombers and kill everything in that country. But before that happens, the two of them must try to save the hostages. They’ll be parachuted in before dawn and left to accomplish the mission on their own. Upon hearing this, Sean asks that Carl be excused and asks the boss to call Joe Armstrong instead of sending Carl. But Joe apparently already turned them down, choosing to remain in the Peace Corps and stay out of it. Damn! Does this mean that Michael Dudikoff isn’t in the movie, despite his face being plastered on its cover? Or does it mean that Sean is destined to fail and be captured himself, forcing Joe to change his mind? I don’t know about you, but I’m praying for the first option.

You know me. I'm Sean's old buddy...Carl. Remember? No? Doesn't matter.

We cut to the next morning where Sean and Carl parachute down to a glen of sparse trees only to find their contact is a young teenager. To make things complicated for no reason, they jump in his car and discover that it’s broken down. So they end up on a rickety bus where Carl and the kid argue about movies while Sean and the rest of us get a headache. Once they arrive in a small town, they go to a bar where Sean kicks everyone’s ass just to prove his identity. Impressed by people needlessly being hurt, the bartender takes them into the back where he briefs them on the situation, showing them the location of the fort, its bomb making facilities, and where the four American hostages should be held. But just as he finishes, Colonel Mulgrew and his men show up. Before they burst in, the bartender tells Sean and Carl to get to Sulpher Springs. Moments later the Colonel breaks in and kills the bartender just before Sean and Carl burst out of a closet and dive out the window.

You've got a pulse? Good enough.

With the kid somehow in tow, Sean and Carl run straight to a church where they’re lead into a mortuary to hide by a girl named Sarah. They hide themselves as corpses on slabs until eventually the pursuing soldiers leave. Once they have a moment to plot their next move, Sean and Carl are introduced to Sarah who immediately gets her panties wet when looking at Sean, thus proving that she hasn’t been laid in a long, long time. Despite Sean’s objections, she says that she must join them as Colonel Mulgrew will be after her now. Sean says that he’ll take her as far as Sulpher Springs, but that’s it. Back in some room, the Colonel interrogates people from the bar about the two Americans, killing them when they say they don’t know anything.

After a quick scene where Mulgrew interrogates and kills people from the bar while trying to ascertain the identities of Sean and Carl, we turn back to our heroes as an arrow hits a tree right by Sarah’s head, conveniently announcing trouble in a non-lethal way. Sean tells them to hide before meditating for a while, then examining his arsenal of ninja stars, a bow, and arrows while doing the splits. Right about now I really miss Van Damme. But now that they’ve not only announced their presence but also waited politely for Sean to prepare for a fight, ninjas flood into the forest. Sean kills several of them quietly before finally fighting a group of them while his three friends watch from a hiding spot, lending nothing more than moral support. But even they are eventually discovered. In an attempt to be of use, Carl fires his gun at the approaching ninjas, just to watch them dodge his bullet, Remo Williams style. As ninjas begin to surround the three of them, Sean joins them just in time to have a net thrown over them all.

We need a head ninja for this movie. His name? Fuck it, he doesn't need one.

Now that they’ve been rather quickly and easily captured, the movie switches over to the evil compound, panning up to a hillside shot where we see, fuck…what else but fucking ninjas giving a goddamn karate demonstration to the Colonel and the Sheik. The head ninja, a dude with a ridiculous tea bag strainer eye patch that they don’t even bother to introduce, leads his men through a bullshit obstacle course that kills several of them. Because as always, wasting your own men is just part of the retarded villain recipe. With the demonstration over, the newly acquired prisoners are led in. Sean is put into a circle of ninjas who take their turn beating him before he finally fights back, slapping them all around with ease before finally getting hit with a blowdart which knocks him out. They’re taken down to the basement where the other Americans are being held, where they’re eventually given a good whipping that Sean barely even notices. Goddamn it, if this movie is going to try to make him so badass, why didn’t he come alone?

With all hope seemingly lost, we return to our old best friend in the world, Joe, as he teaches a small class of young children. But before his lesson can begin, which will undoubtedly somehow make these kids stupider, he spots the CIA boss that had sent Sean and Carl to battle. He sends the kids outside before receiving the news that two more agents, including his friend Sean, have been captured. They need him now more than ever. With that simple premise put out, we shift to a goddamn Folgers commercial as Joe drinks some campfire coffee while pondering his dilemma. Of course he eventually he agrees or at least we assume that’s the case when we next see him getting off a plane. You never know. He might have just said fuck it and taken a vacation.

Come on, sing along with me: The best part of waking up...

He’s met by the same young kid who was Sean’s contact, whom he tells to take him directly to Sulpher Springs. As they drive, the kid explains the situation to him, describing how Sulpher Springs used to be a penal colony, but since the new president was elected, the prisoners have taken over and become a haven for people who hate the Colonel. I disagree and think it’s just a group of shitty actors trying to recreate Mad Max Beyond The Thunderdome, but we’ll go with that. But that’s quite enough exposition without anyone getting a punch in the jaw, so as the kid talks and they continue to drive out in the middle of nowhere, a ninja suddenly lands on the hood of the car. After Joe punches through the windshield to send the ninja flying, the kid eventually stops so that Joe can get out and finish the remaining attackers.

They reach Sulpher Springs moments later where Joe is once again forced to endure this movie’s standard of identification, fighting three at once to prove his worth. And after doing so rather easily, a black guy whom I guess is their leader calls down from a dilapidated shack to have his men stop, declaring that men like Joe are needed. Joe makes his way up to introduce himself before later sitting down with the camp’s leaders to explain that he needs to be taken to Colonel Mulgrew’s compound where they must create as many distractions as possible so that he can rescue the hostages. In response they explain that getting to the compound is supposed to be impossible, which makes no fucking sense at all, but continue to say that the British were rumored to have dug tunnels there years ago, one of which may still be open. But to verify that, they need to go steal the engineering plans from a local office. Are you kidding me? Plans like that are just sitting in some assholes filing cabinet down at the local planning office?

Just to make things as convenient as sickeningly possible, the next night a fancy party is being held at the government office where those plans are kept. As we arrive on the scene, The President of whatever country this is supposed to be is talking to the American ambassador as the Colonel and the Sheik pull up. When the two men join them, the American ambassador calls them scum. In response, the Colonel and the Sheik take him off alone to deliver the news that they have captured the other operatives and that the execution date is being pushed forward to tomorrow. And as they deliver this news, Joe is dropped off in the courtyard dressed as a priest, and a priest with Jeans beneath his robe, at that. Joe then breaks into the exact building required, goes to the exact room, and finds the exact the plans needed before running back outside to be picked up. But as miraculous as that accomplishment is, it’s matched only moments later when the Colonel discovers that Joe’s broken into the office and immediately ascertains that he was after the plans for the fort without so much as looking to see if they’re gone.

Seriously, what are you doing? I don't even plan on watching this shit.

Back at Sulpher Springs, Joe and the leaders of the not-post-apocalyptic-future army sit and examine the plans, determining a single point of entry that the Colonel’s men didn’t block as they figured no one would be crazy enough to enter. With that declaration, for some reason the camera pans in on Joe as he looks straight at it, almost as if to question why the fuck anyone would still be watching at this point. And just to punch anyone in the balls who dared to avoid his warning, the next thing Joe does is fashion himself a sword. And not a dull, flimsy piece of shit you’d give your kids to play with, but an actual katana, apparently made from shit he found in their dump of a town. So it’s just that easy, huh?

The next morning Joe walks calmly out of Sulpher Springs before its inhabitants rally to go fight in his name. As the road warriors drive away in shitty vehicles with more than half of them running along behind, ensuring that most of them will be exhausted by the time they get there and completely useless in a fight, Colonel receives the news that Sulpher Springs, “are rioting everywhere”, which means little since we haven’t actually seen them doing anything besides walk out of town together. Meanwhile Joe prepares for his ascent to the fort and the fateful battle waiting there by dropping his shit out of sight down into a ditch and jumping in it before the film cuts and he jumps back out in his ninja suit. Awesome. And I thought Superman changing in a phone booth was stupid.

Preparing for the worst, the Colonel and his Sheik go down to the “lab” to collect their famous suitcase nuke. Their description of it as a “lab” might be a little too generous in this case, as it’s a single empty room with the suitcase sitting on a stand. And…that’s it. Regardless, the terrorists begin to take the hostages away for their execution, which for some reason involves changing them all into matching outfits. Apparently this is a prerequisite for execution at the hands of ninjas, so I guess the only stay of execution that you could hope for is if they forgot to get the dry cleaning done. Outside, the convoy of Sulpher Springs slowly rolls up the road to the fort, slowly making their way towards waiting ninjas and thus proving the statement that there’s no way to get into the fort is goddamn retarded. There’s a goddamn road. It might not be easy, but it counts. After several warnings to turn back, the people finally rush forward and their battle begins.

The third edge in our trident of awesome, Joe, continues his climb and finally makes it to the fort, sneaking in through a pipe that he simply rips the steel bars off of. But no sooner is he inside than the Colonel and the Sheik hear him walking through the tunnels. In a panic, they send the nuclear device to a helicopter, order that the executions move ahead to right fucking now, and send a group of ninjas down to face Joe. They soon discover that’s pretty much a death sentence, of course, and one that contains a single moment of unbridled awesomeness: as two ninjas grab either of his arms and hold him while a third shoots at him head on with a crossbow, Joe catches the quarrel in his mouth and whips his head around to stab it into one of the other ninjas before killing the other two. I think that just impregnated me with Michael Dudikoff’s baby.

Ultimate showdown between two champions, or forbidden love between two soul mates? You decide.

Joe finally arrives in the basement where the hostages had been kept, finding only Sean still remaining there, or at least what he thinks is Sean. But of course when Joe unties him, Sean attacks him. They fight until Joe reluctantly puts a knife into Sean stomach, only for Joe to pull away a mask and reveal that it wasn’t Joe but some random dude. I’m sure that was supposed to be a truly great moment, making us think that the two superstars of karate were facing off, but since that ruse would be obvious to a Helen Keller, that was just stupid. Joe then makes his way upstairs, for some reason changing into a yellow ninja suit along the way. He arrives just as the terrorists begin the execution, starting with the first random commando who ends up fully engulfed in flames before Joe walks up and throws a couple of smoke bombs near Sean and the others, freeing them all. Sorry, fellah. I guess you should have found a way to live for five more minutes.

Once they’re free and the final battle begins. The Colonel and the Sheik order the dude with the tea strainer over his eye to kill the infidels, which translates to ninjas slowly walking towards the hostages as Joe and Sean have them all slowly walk back into a cell and close the door behind them. But just as we think that means that Joe has done all this just to give up without a fight, the people of Sulpher Springs suddenly arrive, fighting in full force. Joe and the others then come back out to join in the fighting, while the Sheik runs to the helicopter with the nuke in it to get the hell out of Dodge. But as it begins to fly away, Carl shoots it from the courtyard with a grenade launcher and blows it up, resulting in a truly outstanding shot where they clearly blew up a model that’s hanging from a string. Thinking that he’s going to taste some passable ass before he dies, the Colonel then grabs Sarah and drags her away somewhere quiet while she calls for Sean, who pursues them into a dark room. Meanwhile Joe faces off with the tea strainer eye patch wearing ninja just before Sean finds Sarah on the floor, unconscious. He runs up to her as a shot hits a crate just above his head. So this means that Colonel Mulgrew set a trap, Sean fell for it perfectly, and he still managed to miss. Well done. He deserves to die, which is exactly what happens when he and Sean begin a private battle while Sulpher Springs residents circle around Joe and cheering him on in his simultaneous fight. Sean beats the Colonel to death just as Joe kicks the head ninja down onto a pile of crates and throws a grenade down on him, blowing the whole thing back to hell. Now that’s two times the action! And since that action’s tedious bullshit, that means it’s two times zero equaling infinite sadness. Then movie then makes what appears to be a botched cut back outside in a way that seems like we just missed a couple of minutes of the movie, as Joe gives the yellow ninja suit has was wearing to the kid. Was that suit supposed to have meant something to Joe? Was it his? I thought he just took it from a dude that he killed. Sean walks outside with Sarah just as Joe is making his way towards the front gates and leaving for home. With all the drama that he can muster, Joe looks back and tells Sean that he can find him at the school. He walks away and the credits roll. Really? That’s it?

To quote Hayden Fox from the chapter on friends and family: “This is a picture of Zwieback toast.” It sure is, coach. It sure is.

A kid, a warping ninja, and five minutes of Pat Morita. Seriously, we're not even trying anymore.

American Ninja V

By now we didn’t think we could possibly take any more. Ninjas in suits that matched all the colors of the rainbow haunted our dreams. The producers of the final picture in this epic opus must have felt the same way, because for the last film they completely fuck with our heads for no discernable reason. David Bradley, whom we know and love as Sean in the previous films, makes his return playing a character named…Joe? Your assumption might be the same as ours, that they have cast him to play Michael Dudikoff’s role, hoping that we wouldn’t notice. But as you’ll soon discover, as we did, he doesn’t have anywhere near the same backstory. So is this a new character? Did he just change his name? Why call this the fifth fucking movie if it ignores the first four? Is that burning toast I smell?

This thrilling adventure begins with Joe, or as I insist of calling him, SeanJoe, and a random dude training. And man, are they doing a lot of training. With apples, too. That’s so ninja! It then cuts to SeanJoe returning home to his boat at the docks where he finds some random chick named Lisa working on his boat. They discover that she has varnished his boat by accident, which means that he can’t stay there for two days while it dries. To make it up to him, Lisa invites him back to dinner while he awkwardly bumbles his way off the boat like a thirty five year old virgin.

If Van Damme has too much self-respect to appear in your film, you know who to call.

And as we all know by know, once you get a peek at the hero, you must introduce the villain. After his bald mustachioed henchman, whom we’ll call Evil Ghandi, arrives at Glock Chemicals and demands that the resident doctor tests his new pesticide on a puppy, the doctor storms out and finds the film’s evil mastermind, Mr. Glock, who is meeting with a clearly evil General. They argue over the use of his research, as the doctor insists it is only meant to use it for insects. Glock insists he means nothing more than that before ordering Evil Ghandi to take the doctor back to the lab. Once he’s gone, the General then tells Glock that he has two days to produce the gas or his army will use his hotel as target practice. Once the General leaves and Glock is finally alone, he screams for the Viper. Suddenly there’s a flash and an Asian dude appears, warping out of nowhere to a sound effect that would be deemed too shitty for public access television. Glock sends the Viper to America to find the doctor’s daughter to help convince him to finish his work.

The four minutes that I'm in this film are really going to cost you.

Back in America, SeanJoe and the same dude from the opening credits are sparring in a gym when Pat Morita, or Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid as he will be forever known, comes in to remind SeanJoe that he’s supposed to be housesitting for him this weekend. But unbeknownst to SeanJoe, he’s also supposed to be babysitting Mr. Miyagi’s grandnephew Hiro, the last of his ninja line. Miyagi-san asks SeanJoe if he would consider taking Hiro as his student, but SeanJoe refuses, saying he doesn’t teach kids. Satisfied that he’s at least managed to saddle someone else with his idiot nephew, Mr. Miyagi then warps out of the room immediately after saying goodbye. Hiro asks how he did that, to which SeanJoe replies, “ninja magic.” So yes, in this movies, ninjas just warp around everywhere at will, paying little attention to who they do it in front of, and yet haven’t been tracked down like E.T. for scientific research. Sure, that’s plausible.

Now that our Cop and a Half style buddy action-comedy has been set up, SeanJoe and Hiro roll away in his truck as Hiro repeatedly mentions how he’s now noticing girls and doesn’t know what it means. I swear that if SeanJoe explains to him what a boner is, I’m turning this off right now. SeanJoe ends up having his dinner that night with Hiro along for the ride, when Lisa reveals that she made the mistake with the varnish on purpose to meet SeanJoe. Portraying David Bradley and Michael Dudikoff as heartthrobs might be the biggest stretch to logic these movies make, and they love to do it. As dinner ends, Lisa goes to the kitchen to fetch dessert when the Viper shows up to snatch her. Moments later, SeanJoe and Hiro notice the Viper walking away with her and run after them. They’re greeted by ninjas, of course, who spit on regular weapons in favor of the more badass flaming arrow and a flaming set of nunchuks to try to stop him, and yet they are defeated just as easily. The Viper loads Lisa onto an ambulance which SeanJoe tries unsuccessfully to jump on while Hiro grabs SeanJoe’s truck and takes off, with SeanJoe jumping in the back before eventually makes his way from the box to the passenger seat. They follow the ambulance to a waiting plane where they load Lisa onboard, apparently not noticing that they were followed rather noisily for the entire drive. SeanJoe and Hiro then stow away in the cargo section just before the ship takes off, which then features a way, way too long shot of SeanJoe just sitting there, hopefully reflecting on what a failure his life has become.

I'm sure you could bust out, Joe, if only there was some way to pass you a tool or weapon...

The plane arrives in Venezuela where Lisa is turned over to Evil Ghandi as SeanJoe and Hiro sneak off the plane only for SeanJoe to end up being arrested. But as he rots alone in jail, SeanJoe receives a visit from Hiro, who reassures him through his prison cell window that leads to street level that he’s going to find a way to free him. Shit, you could pass him a weapon through the bars. I’m pretty sure even a South American jail wouldn’t be stupid enough to have a window from a prison cell to the street outside.

As we turn back to Glock, he explains to the doctor that the consequences will be severe if he doesn’t cooperate, bringing Lisa on the scene. Horrified, the doctor takes his daughter aside and explains that his formula will kill insects and leave no toxic residue, as desired, but it will kill humans in high enough concentrations. But the doctor goes on to declare that he’ll find a way to cause the whole thing to backfire and kill them all before he complies with Glock’s demands, somehow forgetting that Glock and his men are only about five feet away and he’s not whispering. Fuck…

The ancient battle between pirates and ninjas has a new bastardized champion.

The movie catches up with our heroes moments later as SeanJoe is transported from the jail in a van, being moved to God knows where. We get a nice long scene where Hiro chases after the van while background music plays that is far too whimsical for this movie. I feel like I’m watching a village celebration scene in a Zelda game. Eventually Hiro gets beside the van and purposely wipes out, which causes the van to stop and the only two guards inside it to get out and see if he’s okay. But while they’re looking for the kid in the gathered crowd, Hiro sneaks around and steals the van. Thinking that all is safe, Hiro drives for a while until Evil Ghandi and a random thug ram the van off the road using a jeep. After taking the kid out, hanging him by the jacket on a nearby tree, and unloading their Uzis into the side of the van, they open the back door to make sure that SeanJoe is dead. When they look in, SeanJoe’s not there as is shown in a shot of the van which is clearly empty. But how did he get out? As they ponder that, he suddenly he is, jumping out to attack them. Where did he come from, since the van was empty? Don’t ask. And just to spice things up, he starts to talk in a shitty Elvis impersonation while kicking ass. But as SeanJoe goes to get the kid down, the Viper suddenly warps onto the top of the van, summoning ninjas who also come out of nowhere. So…did they warp too? What the fuck is going on? As SeanJoe fights a group of them, others come and carry Hiro off into the hills. SeanJoe naturally ends up chasing after them, fighting more ninjas before coming to a goddamn random obstacle course featuring swinging sacks filled with knives. Was that already there? Is that common in Venezuela unbeknownst to me? Regardless, he finally rescues Hiro and they escape.

As they walk back down by random docks, they try to figure out the connection between all the events they’ve been a witness to, which is theoretically impossible considering how much of it was bullshit. Suddenly Evil Ghandi and the same thug pull up in the same Jeep again, firing an Uzi at them before tossing a grenade. With his pants on fire, SeanJoe dives into the ocean just as the Viper appears. Having hid behind some crates safely, Hiro believes SeanJoe to be dead and starts to bawl like a baby. Minutes later he ends up wandering the streets alone, trying to trade away his Sega GameGear in return for the directions to the American Embassy. But not even kids in the third world are dumb enough to accept a GameGear. Meanwhile SeanJoe meditates on a rooftop conveniently just above Hiro, praying to Mr. Miyagi to give him strength before his flex-praying eventually destroys the shackles on his arms. Down below, Hiro finds a group of men playing a back alley game of dice. He decides that’s a great place to stop, trying to blend in when some dude comes up and calls Hiro a thief, threatening to take a finger with a knife. Suddenly SeanJoe appears in a shirt that looks like a test for color blindness and grabs the knife away. Our two heroes then run up to a rooftop where SeanJoe uses the knife to cut a live power line, which I’m pretty sure would execute him, before once again saying in an Elvis voice, “Let’s swing”. They use the power line to swing down to the street leaving the men behind to laugh as they crash into a fish kiosk.

As they walk away from the experience smelling like a hobo’s ballsack, SeanJoe has the nerve to tell Hiro that he needs a steady hand, guidance, and to be back in school. The conversation then gets confusing and retarded, which is not surprising but highly fucking boring. But it soon ends when the Viper warps onto the scene again, along with another group of ninjas. An epic battle of four seconds then takes place before they’re all disposed of by SeanJoe, before our heroes walk around a corner and find the Viper with yet another group of ninjas. To make this just as stupid as it is not exciting, this fight involves SeanJoe kicking some ass while Hiro aims his GameGear at them from a distance, pretending to fire it like a gun while it makes shitty fake machine gun sounds. Much to my applause, the Viper then punches Hiro to the ground, standing over him while Hiro has a flashback of the Viper killing his father in a sword duel and taking a medallion from around his father’s neck. As the vision comes to an end, SeanJoe flies in and knocks the Viper back, fighting with him for a minute before the Viper does a back flip and warps away. But just before this scene is a complete waste of time, SeanJoe then puts a random ninja in a headlock and demands to know where Lisa is, getting the information he needs before snapping the ninja’s neck.

Later SeanJoe wakes Hiro up in a different location, assuring him that everything is alright before Hiro begins to confess to hiding while the Viper killed his father, crying that he’s a coward. Again, he begs for SeanJoe to teach him Ninjitsu so that he can redeem his honor. But again SeanJoe refuses, prompting Hiro to say that he knows about SeanJoe’s younger brother who was killed in a fight. Hiro assures SeanJoe that it wasn’t his fault, but SeanJoe says that he was his sensei, so he was responsible. Shaking his head, Hiro assures him that he couldn’t have stopped his brother anymore than SeanJoe can stop him.

Ninja Rule #1: Nothing is more important than practicing your kicks in front of a good sunset. Nothing.

Apparently that five second reassurance was all SeanJoe needed, as it jumps straight to lesson one of Hiro’s ninja training, which the Nine Levels of Power configuration, a method of holding your hands together while meditating. As they begin to meditate, smoke billows in and Miyagi-san suddenly appears. He congratulates SeanJoe on reaching the boy in a way no one else could before telling Hiro that he carries a burden too heavy for a young boy. Mr. Miyagi asks him to think back to the teaching that he’s suppressing which results in a series of flashbacks of Hiro as a toddler training with his father on a beach. Miyagi-san then says to SeanJoe that he must also let go of his pain when some dude, whom I guess is supposed to be SeanJoe’s little brother, walks up and smiles like a dillhole before walking away again. Um…okay. Miyagi-san then warns them to be weary of the evil samurai known as the Viper, banished from Japan for his treachery, before wandering back into the smoke and disappearing. That might have been useful to hear before they had already run into the Viper twice, Miyagi-san, but thanks for the memories. With that initial mindfuck out of the way, it’s time to kick the training into high gear as we see SeanJoe and Hiro practicing kicks in front of the sunset. You know, there’s shit to get done, assholes. Lisa could be dying as you do the goddamn splits. This might not be the best time for a beginner’s ninja class.

Now that the preparation is done, SeanJoe and Hiro decide it’s finally time for action. They head to Glock’s hotel where the security is so tight that henchmen are playing cards while ninjas lounge around. The two of them break in after stealing two ninjas’ outfits, using such ancient ninja techniques as pushing Hiro down a hallway on a room service cart while he kicks passing ninjas in the face before eventually freeing Lisa and escaping down a rope to the courtyard below. The rope gives out and they fall the last two stories, landing in a shallow pool, but hey, they’re fine. They run out the front of the hotel with a ton of ninjas in pursuit, eventually getting a cab and taking off to the American embassy. As they ride in the cab, Lisa explains the situation with her father’s new pesticide and the whole affair surrounding it to our two heroes. SeanJoe decides to drop Hiro off at the embassy to get help before leaving for Glock Labs, not knowing that the ambassador is actually n Glock’s pocket, right next to his Tic-Tacs and signed, wallet-sized picture of John Ratzenberger.

Back at his lab, Glock comes to check on the doctor’s progress, which is considerable as he’s not only created a weaponized version of the gas, but also constructed a briefcase to carry it. Glock demands a demonstration, bringing the puppy in again as an adorable subject whom I would kill every asshole in this movie to save. The doctor complies, but instead tries to set off the gas with Glock in the room there with him. But his attempt is unsuccessful, of course, which results only in Glock declaring that they will test the gas on him alone.

As our focus turns to the outside of the building, SeanJoe and Lisa sneak up to the lab just in time to see the ambassador pull up to the front doors with Hiro in tow. As Hiro is taken into a warehouse area to await his fate, he starts to meditate to pass the time while Lisa and SeanJoe begin to slowly fight their way inside. SeanJoe eventually makes his way to the warehouse and saves Hiro only moments before the ambassador, Glock, and the Viper walk in. A random thug drags Lisa away as ninjas assemble for the showdown, one of whom pops out of a box that was in the room. Wait…was he there the whole time, just waiting for the off-chance that a fight will break out in there? Anyways, the grand battle begins, which is actually no larger in scale than any other fight in the film thus far. But while it’s going on, Lisa knocks out the thug holding her and hurries off to find her father. With the standard fodder soon out of the way, SeanJoe and Hiro then face off against the Viper, who immediately disposes of Hiro before moving on to SeanJoe. After a few minutes, the Viper appears to be beating him, so Glock and the ambassador decide that leaving is a smarter choice than seeing the fight through to conclusion and making sure that their irritant meets his end. For some reason at that point the Viper then turns his attention to beating on Hiro again, giving SeanJoe a chance to get back up. The Viper leaves the kid and faces SeanJoe again, only for the battle to turn in SeanJoe’s favor as he finishes with a spectacular JCVD signature jumping splits kick.

Sean, Joe - whatever your name is - leave the chick and her dad behind if you have to, just save that goddamn puppy!

While this epic battle is going on, Lisa manages to find her father and the puppy, rushing in to save them just before Evil Ghandi walks in to stop her. He laughs maniacally while Glock and the ambassador arrive just in time to see the bomb’s countdown comes to an end, releasing the deadly gas. But just then, SeanJoe kicks his way in opens the door to the test chamber, passing the doctor and Lisa gas masks while leaving Evil Ghandi, Glock, and the ambassador to fight over two masks remaining.

As all three men die of the gas after discovering that the two remaining masks were actually broken, our heroes run outside just in time to see a plane leaving on the lab’s runway. Bursting into action, SeanJoe runs up and jumps into the back of the plane just before it takes off, finding Hiro in the back and the Viper flying it. Setting it to auto-pilot, the Viper moves to the back to fight them again, while SeanJoe notices a suitcase beside him has a counter that’s counting down. As and the Viper grapple, Hiro moves up to the front to fly the plane. He eventually turns around to use a slingshot, hitting the Viper with his father’s pendant just as SeanJoe throws a small flaming bundle. The Viper falls out of the plane engulfed in flaming, begging the question of why he’s not just warping down to the water to save himself. But it doesn’t matter now, as SeanJoe douses the ticking briefcase in water, which apparently defeats it the bombs inside. He joins Hiro in the cockpit where the two of them laughs at how retarded this whole thing has been before deciding it’s time to go home.

For one last kick in the face, the movie turns back to Lisa’s boat in America, where all the characters are sitting together when Miyagi-san shows up just to remind us that he actually collected a paycheck for this bullshit. He sits down and plays some GameGear while SeanJoe and Lisa move to the back for some private time. But just as they move to make out, Hiro warps in, silently begging for a freaky ninja three-way. SeanJoe tells him to fuck off so that he can get some, crushing the dream and causing Hiro to warp away. As the two finally kiss, this very painful adventure officially ends.

We leave on the immortal words of Coach Hayden, as he decrees in the chapter on life: “This is a much more confusing game than football.” Truer words have never been said, coach. Dauber be praised.

The Verdict:

Donkey: As you no doubt know by now, to truly evaluate any film in this series, you have to evaluate them as a whole, as the larger context truly points out how insane the parts are. First, there is absolutely no continuity between films, which is nothing short of award worthy. Did the screenwriters of the successive sequels not even bother to watch the movies that came before it? The fact that this series can have Sean go from being a random karate champion to a CIA agent, and then have him suddenly go by the name of Joe in the last fucking movie without a single word of explanation as to why he’s using Michael Dudikoff’s character’s name, all with a straight face, is nothing short of astounding. And how can you possibly justify making five goddamn movies in the series when all of them are nearly identical, especially when not a single one of them is worth telling? Sweet Hayden, I have to give this entire series four generic ninjas out of five completely inexplicable Elvis impersonations.

What We Learned:

Donkey: Apparently no one in the 80′s knew what a ninja really was. It’s a fucking assassin, people, not just some asshole who knows karate. So American or otherwise, putting on black pajamas, taking three karate classes down at the local community center, and wandering around to help solve problems does not make you a fucking ninja.

And wait a minute…I fucking hate Coach. This book is still hilarious, though.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: one of the greatest games in the history of video games, dropping a massive turd on all our chests in…SUPER MARIO BROS.

Back To The Main Page.

I'm here to make sure all your clocks are synchronized.

Donkey: If there’s one premise that will almost assuredly mean that a movie that you’re about to watch is about to be complete bullshit, it’s the subject of time travel. The method, governing rules, and possible results of time travel vary greatly from movie to movie, and no franchise handles it with less care than the Star Trek series. One moment they treat it like it’s a monumental task that can only be achieved by slingshotting yourself around the sun with a couple of whales, and then in the next moment treat it it’s a goddamn footnote to preventing the Borg from invading the Earth, less remarkable than Data getting a robo-boner. But they are far from alone, as this has been a popular subject amongst science fiction movies for as long as they have existed. The problem is that most of them assume that your knowledge of physics and the theory of time travel is strong enough only to realize that if you stuff Cheetos in your face, they will eventually make their triumphant return in your toilet a few hours later. So if I’m going to be patronized, I want to be patronized by a man doing the splits.

The Plot:

Donkey: Despite what the title would lead you to believe, Timecop is actually the story of Van Damme as he struggles to run a small haberdashery in the heart of eighteenth century London. With the pressure of rising textile costs and the overwhelming expectations of an overbearing father, Van Damme silently struggles through his inner turmoil while trying to gain the favor of his landlord’s comely daughter.

Seriously, wouldn’t it be awesome if that were the case?

Actually, Timecop is exactly what you’d expect it to be. In the far distant future, all the way in the year 1994, time travel has been perfected, provided that you consider throwing yourself at a wall and hoping that you don’t die perfection. As a result, the US government creates a secret organization dedicated to patrolling time and making sure that no one attempts to alter it for their own gain. But when JCVD, their star agent, discovers that the politician responsible for overseeing the department has been corrupted, he must find a way to stop the Senator’s exceptionally modestly evil ambitions.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Part I: Gentlemen, Find Me The Greatest Ballerina In All The Land

I've come back to ask y'all for your gold and your flossing techniques.

Donkey: Our feature starts as all tales worth telling happen to, in Gainesville, Georgia circa 1863. A small band of Confederate troops wanders down a lonely road in the pouring rain, having taken some time away from subjugating black people and planning weddings between cousins to transport a cache of the much famed Confederate gold. But their journey comes to an end moments later when they approach a lone figure standing in the middle of the road, blocking their path. Since we never learn his name, we’ll simply call him the Gummy Avenger. As they politely ask him to move, the Gummy Avenger counters their offer by suggesting that they hand over all their gold to him, all the while grinning like he just ripped a Taco Grande fart. That grin is especially noteworthy and his name becomes immediately appropriate when you realize that this man ironically has fewer teeth than the Confederate soldiers that he’s robbing. Having our pal Gummy quite outnumbered, the soldiers naturally laugh at his request, chuckling all the way to the grave as GA pulls out two fully automatic weapons and shoots them dead, a feat of marksmanship that is quite impressive when all their horses trot away quite alive without their mounts moments later, even though he was spraying bullets with less accuracy than a John Holmes money shot.

Now what do I have to do to put you folks in this Sunfire today?

With the threat of toothless men traveling back in time to steal a form of currency that’s all but theoretically useless to most of the world’s populace from other men whom are miraculously free of dental diseases having been established, the question now turns to whether or not the rest of the world will ever be able to sleep another night without falling into the depths of an oral hygienic nightmare. If you’re anything like me, then pondering this inevitably brings you to the answer, “shit no”. And as luck would have it, we’re not the only ones. We shift forward in time to the modern day, presuming that the modern day is somewhere in 1994, to see the repercussions of this interference with the space time continuum. A meeting of the Senate Oversight Committee for Covert Operations is called, where a group of politicians are presented with the news that time travel has been perfected. After an exceptionally elementary speech on how changing events in the past can cause ripples that will make drastic changes to the future, perhaps even going so far as to destroy mankind, the bureaucrats argue that it must be protected. To hammer home their point, they use the example of our friend, the toothless gold miner, to warn that they have already encounters dangers, having stopped an arms deal in Germany involving Middle Eastern terrorists that was being financed using the stolen confederate gold. The Senators listening to this pitch seem convinced, and the agency known as the Time Enforcement Commission is born. Ron Silver, playing Senator McComb, volunteers to chair the committee while looking on with the kind of moderately evil expression that could either mean that he will go on to be the film’s main antagonist or that he’s about to try to sell us a used Pontiac.

The face of disappointment.

And now that we’ve established the institution of the Timecops, it’s time to introduce the man who will lead them to glory. The movie cuts to a mall where Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend, Mia Sara, is approached from behind by a strange man with a thick Belgian accent. Hoping to turn around and discover a vision of rugged masculinity who will teach her the sensual French arts that unlock the doors to Flavor Country, she instead finds JCVD. Damn. I was kind of hoping it was going to be Cameron Fry. Once they’re finished playing the classic ‘let’s try to revitalize our failing sex life by pretending you’re a whore’ game, Van Damme explains that he has just come from a meeting with Matuzak, the head of the TEC. But before he can share the outcome of that meeting, danger rears its ugly and horribly stereotypical head. A dude on rollerblades, whom should be put to death for rollerblading through a fucking mall in the first place, snatches the purse of an elderly woman and tries to make a break for it. Unfortunately for him, the world’s deadliest ballerina is on the case! As he tries to make his obnoxious getaway, he comes face to face with the surprisingly small boot of justice. But rather than making the punk swallow his own teeth, Van Damme instead simply kicks his foot up to the punk’s face level and intimidates him into submission by asking him to read the logo on the sole of his boot. Rather than just turning and going to other goddamn way, this actually scares the failed thief into surrendering the bag back to the old lady and sulking away in shame.

Hey buddy, can you check to see if I stepped in dog shit?

There is no time in the history of man that this hair style wasn't considered retarded.

As he admires his own handiwork, JCVD looks up to a railing above him to see two random dudes with bad hair staring at him. With coifs like that, you know that they must mean business. Clown business, but business nonetheless. But being a man who laughs in the face of danger as readily as he will in the face of quality scripts, Van Damme looks back a second later only to discover that they’re gone. But rather than wonder who the fuck gets a haircut like that on purpose, he instead goes back home with his wife to make with the sexy time. If there’s a better way to end a scene than showing me Jean Claude’s ass, I don’t know what it is.

As they lay around at the end of what was likely a four hour tour of sexual delights that no mere mortal man could possibly Shirpa a woman through, JCVD gets a call from work asking him to come in immediately. Mia begs him not to answer it, but his sense of duty provides a convenient excuse to get the hell out of the non-splits involving cuddling that was sure to soon follow. As he leaves through the front door of a house big enough that no fucking cop could possibly afford it, he’s attacked by the two dudes with the Flowbee haircuts that he saw earlier at the mall, while others drag his wife upstairs and try to finish the job that Van Damme couldn’t. Once they slap him around to their satisfaction, the cyberpunks finally shoot Van Damme twice in the chest at point blank range and walk away. Naturally JCVD reveals that he was wearing a bulletproof vest a moment later, as he gets up to see his wife screaming in their bedroom window. But just as he tries to rush back into the house, the entire house explodes in a way that could only actually happen if the entire goddamn foundation that it was built on happened to consist of dynamite. We’re not really sure why, but I suspect that after having experienced dozens of orgasms at the hands of Van Damme, his wife had been brought to the very precipice of pleasures that no one was meant to achieve, and when someone tried to touch her again, her vagina simply exploded. But hey, it’s just a theory.

I wonder if I left the stove on...YAARRRGGGHHHH!!!

Part II: Dr Splitslove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying About My Dead Wife And Love My Mullet

I can't wait for the future when we replace our iPods with...what the fuck is that?

With that random act of unmotivated violence complete, it’s time once again travel into the past. In this case find ourselves arriving on the magical day of October 30th, 1929. A man named Lyle Atwood walks into an office on Wall Street, pulls out a newspaper from the distant year of 2004, and proves it to be entirely useless by laying out his plan to invest solely in oil companies. Did you really have to bring stock quotes back from the future with you if you were going to only pick one product? Couldn’t you just write a note on your hand that says, “Remember: invest in oil, pick up cat food”? To really get himself in the mood to do some evil investing, he pulls out what appears to be some kind of Future Walkman that plays an audio format that I’ve never fucking seen before to listen to some future music. I know how he feels. Not even planning my future wealth can suppress my need to RAWK! But just as he gets comfy, Van Damme steps through a time portal in the middle of the room. But this isn’t the cock-eyed young dancer Van Damme that we’ve seen up to this point. This is a grizzled, battle-hardened, mini-mullet sporting Timecop of the future. They greet each other knowingly and establish that they are ex-partners at the TEC. Van Damme starts to calmly gather up all the future stuff sitting around in the room while Lyle tries to justify his actions, saying that he won’t change anything but his own bank account. And as he talks, Lyle hits an alarm under his desk that summons two hilariously unoriginal 1920′s strong men who apparently skipped out of their fighting classes to concentrate on mustache waxing techniques. Van Damme naturally destroys them both, knocking the first one out rather easily before taking on the second one using a deadly combination of wall-running and completely unnecessary splits. Still not willing to give up, Lyle pulls out a Future Gun and proceeds to shoot the whole fucking office up, sending his coworkers away screaming. You know, for a guy trying to stop Lyle from changing the past, Van Damme’s doing a shitty job of it. Once he runs out of ammo and resigns himself to the fact that there is no man alive who can stop the Muscles from Brussels, Lyle reveals that he was sent back by Senator McComb who’s gathering money to fund his campaign for President. Van Damme doesn’t believe him at first, because apparently a crooked US Senator is a totally unbelievably premise, and tells him that Lyle that he has no choice. After saying that he doesn’t either, Lyle takes off and jumps out of a window. Still not willing to give up even in the face of the formidable duo of opponents that are gravity and really fucking hard pavement, Van Damme doesn’t hesitate to follow him out the window. As the two of them hurdle towards the ground together, JCVD grabs Lyle and hits a button on his belt that conveniently opens up a time portal right in front of them, taking them back to the future. The day has been saved! Hurray! Oh, except if you consider the crowd of people who watched you open a goddamn time portal, which should definitely change something about the future that they’re returning to. In that case you might want to wait before putting that trophy on your mantle.

Van Damme faces his most terrifying opponent yet: my elementary school vice principal.

Oh yeah, there's nothing weird about looking up and seeing that.

The movie returns to the future again, all the way to the inconceivably distant year of 2004, showing Van Damme and his captured prey in the TEC offices where Van Damme tells Lyle to testify and he’ll do what he can for him. Justice is apparently a speedy process in the future, as the two of them stand before a judge moments later, whom Lyle refuses to speak to, despite Van Damme’s pleading. Since he offers no defense of any kind, Lyle is sentenced to death, which is carried out immediately by putting him back in the exact same position in the past that he was saved from: falling to his doom.

With that business at an end, our focus turns to a Timecop staff meeting that Van Damme interrupts in an attempt to share his revelations about Senator McComb with his boss, Matuzak, only moments before a small group of politicians and bureaucrats, including Senator McComb himself, barges into the office for a tour. As McComb and JCVD dance with very little subtlety around the fact that they both know that he’s crooked, a couple of key plot points are established. First the group makes fun of McComb for having sold off his stake in the company that manufactures the chip that enables time travel, a move that cost him billions of dollars. Then Matuzak drops an obvious bomb of foreshadowing, explaining that one of the dangers of time travel is that if someone goes back and runs into themselves, the results can be catastrophic as the same matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

As he leaves the brief meeting with his soft-shoed rival, McComb jumps in the most fucking awesome future limo I’ve ever seen, where he gets an update on the latest poll results in his presidential bid. His assistant declares that while he’s making inroads, McComb’s numbers aren’t high enough and that he’s going to run out of money before all is said and done. And while part of me is desperately hoping this news will convince McComb to give up this idiotic path and turn to something truly evil, like traveling back in time to arbitrarily rape Tony Danza while yelling, “now who’s the boss?”, he dismisses his assistant’s advice by smashing his face into the side of the car. McComb declares that elections are won with television and money, and that all he needs is fifty million to buy the network time that he needs. Wow, Senator, that’s…really underwhelming. So the movie’s evil mastermind is stealing money to buy network air time? If he commits the heinous crime of misappropriation of funds on top of this, McComb might just become the next Hitler.

So if I'm to believe this movie, the primary complaint among car consumers in the future is the hassle of actually being able to see out of them?

Back in the TEC offices, Van Damme finally reveals the news of Lyle Atwood naming McComb to Matuzak before going home alone in another fucking awesome future car, which in his case drives itself. Apparently not very well, though, as it screeches its way around a corner when it pulls up to his place. Van Damme enters his dark future apartment and immediately turns on an old home video of him and Mia Sara trying to build a birdhouse before they give up and have a poorly motivated horizontal mambo session in the park. He recites his parts along with the tape while drinking, which one can only presume is mere moments before he begins a tear-filled jerk off marathon. Ah…that takes me back to Friday nights with season one of The Golden Girls on DVD. Who hasn’t been there?

The scene fades to the next morning, where a news story playing on the TV in the background declares that McComb’s campaign is out of money as JCVD lays asleep on his couch. While he dreams of tight pants and deli sandwiches, a laser sight makes its way onto his forehead. But just as the mysterious attacker pulls the trigger, Van Damme wakes up and somehow manages to get out of the way just as the Taser strikes. After taking the assailant, whom we’ll refer to as Dynamo, out with a simple throw, Van Damme turns to face an Asian opponent whom is naturally in the movie only to provide some kind of plausible opponent that is as well versed as him in martial arts. To show off how badass they are, Van Damme and the Karate Kid engage in what has to be one of the fucking dumbest conceptual fights ever scene in films, the knife fight. Apparently we’re not supposed to realize how goddamn impossible it would be for anyone to parry an attack using a three inch blade. Well, I guess it would be far more implausible in this particular case if Van Damme actually moved his hand. But instead he just holds his knife up in front of his face and the Karate Kid just continuously slashes at it, rather than just sticking him in the kidneys. The fight ends in his kitchen, with Van Damme lying face down on the floor while a water jug spills out all around him and Dynamo takes aim at him again with his Taser. But being fully trained in the art of awesome, Van Damme avoids the attack by jumping up and doing the splits on his counters to stay safely out of range, while the Taser hits the floor and causes Dynamo to be electrocuted by the water he’s standing in. Just as Jean Claude smashes Dynamo through the front door of his apartment, an Internal Affairs agent named Fielding shows up with beat cops right behind her to clean up the mess.

Thank God he's in his underwear. I was worried for a second that I wouldn't be forced to see his balls in this movie.

As that mild dose of action draws to a close and I gradually stop karate chopping the couch while reciting quotes from Sixteen Candles, the movie returns to TEC Headquarters where JCVD bursts into Matuzak’s office to declare that McComb tried to have him killed and to demand to know why he’s being followed by Internal Affairs. Matuzak explains that it’s because his partner went crooked, so AI isn’t sure if he can be trusted, so Fielding will be following him on his next mission. He gives the typical buddy cop action movie speech about not working with partners, which is so old by now that I’m pretty sure it could write a firsthand account of the Lincoln presidency, just before an emergency situations is declared. The three of them run to the control room where they find Ricky The Tech digitally fucking a woman using the shitty future equivalent of a Virtual Boy. This adds absolutely nothing to the film besides an excuse to show another naked woman and to tee up Van Damme for the awesome line, “Looks like safe sex to me.” Sweet.

Part III: Apparently The Corrupt Are Pretty Good At Corrupting Other People…Who Knew?

Once the details of the time emergency are laid out, Van Damme suits up to take care of the breach. As he and Fielding march into the launch area, we finally see the movie’s actual method of time traveling for the first time. It consists of a rocket sled on a stretch of track that speeds towards a giant arch. As long as the sled gets up to the right speed, it passes through a time portal just before the arch and goes back through time and space. But the single greatest part of this process is that on the other side of the arch there is a fucking brick wall. This means that if something goes wrong and the pod doesn’t successfully travel back through time, it smashes into the goddamn wall at an incredibly high speed. Van Damme illustrates this by pointing out the two massive blotches of red on the wall that apparently used to be a pair of twins that failed to launch correctly. The movie rolls right past these details rather quickly, but these are plot points that stand out amongst all shitty movies as so fundamentally retarded that we really need to stop and think about this. If your method of time travel involves a rocket sled getting up to what Doc Brown has scientifically proven to be the required 88 miles per hour, why the fuck would you build a goddamn brick wall three feet past the point that the sled is supposed to disappear, other than creating an arbitrary element of lethal danger? Couldn’t you just have another fifty feet of track after that, so the goddamn sled could come to a gradual stop if something went wrong and you could, I don’t know, maybe try again? What goddamn Marketing major designed this fucking thing? And if two people had died smashing into that wall, why the fuck are their blood stains still on that goddamn wall? Is the wall itself not a terrifying enough threat to deter failure?

Theoretical danger isn't enough. Let's add a physical threat for no reason at all. Oh, and never clean the thing. Perfect.

Once the launch is completed successfully, which is denoted by Van Damme and Fielding’s faces being warped before the sled disappears into a time portal, the two of them drop into a lake in the middle of Washington DC. Again, this isn’t mentioned, but it completes a trifecta of stupidity when it comes to the time travel process in this movie. The two of them disappeared in the time portal with the rocket sled, but arrived in the past without it. So where did the goddamn sled go? Why exactly would it not travel back with them? Did anyone actually write this script, or did the Awesome-O 5000 spit it out for a boardroom full of Hollywood executives? Regardless, having arrived in the past, our two heroes walk towards their destination while making idle chit chat about their jobs and philosophical views on life, managing to make the subjects as remarkably boring as you would think. When they finally arrive at the Parker McComb Datalink industrial warehouse which we must presume is their destination, they split up to sneak in.

Ice to see you!

Inside the building we see a younger Senator McComb, or Past McComb, about to sell his part of the company, the move which was mentioned previously in the future as one that cost him billions of dollars. Just as his partner, Parker, hands McComb a cheque and says that he’s out of the company, Future McComb arrives through a time portal with a group of thugs and stops the transaction. Naturally JCVD steps in, as he and Fields quickly subdue the group. But just as JCVD goes to collect McComb’s Track & Return module and face McComb for a moment of gloating glory before returning him to future to face charges, Fields turns her gun on him. With the tables turned, McComb shoots Parker dead. But just before Van Damme shares a similar fate, he of course manages to create a distraction that allows him to escape. At that point the movie gives us a painfully stereotypical sneak and fight scene, where Van Damme takes out all of McComb’s men one at a time. After knocking the last thug into liquid nitrogen and shattering his arm with a kick, Van Damme finally faces off with McComb and Fielding. McComb watches to two of them grapple for a moment before getting bored, shooting Fielding, and going back into the future. As he hears sirens gradually arriving on the scene, Van Damme checks on Fielding before fleeing back to the future himself.

Van Damme arrives back in TEC Headquarters in 2004, coming to a smooth stop in the time pod before getting out, which represents the final slice of bread in this time traveling shit sandwich. To review: they leave in a pod, arrive in the past without it, but return to the future back in it somehow? This whole movie is taking a piss in my mouth right about now. As he walks back into the office, he learns that McComb is in the process of tearing down the whole department. Now that he has changed the future so that he didn’t lose out on those billions, McComb’s way out in front of the polls and has money to burn. Not giving up that easily, Van Damme tries to look up Fielding in the computer to prove his allegations that McComb has been tampering with the past. Unable to find any record of her, he realizes that the only way to prove his case is to go back, find Fielding, and convince her to testify. And why not? One random person’s testimony should be enough to drag down a prominent politician who’s on the verge of becoming the next president. It’s not like you could just manufacture that testimony by hiring a coked-up prostitute off the street. He, Matuzak, and Ricky The Tech prove that McComb had his own time machine by looking at electricity spikes before Matuzak finally agrees to send him back for shits and giggles. He and Van Damme go and fire up the equipment, as apparently the complicated process can be handled quite easily by two people, even when one of them is just sitting in the pod. But before Jean Claude can get away safely, two soldiers burst in to stop them. Undeterred, Matuzak tries to finish the process, only to be shot. But as he falls dead, he hits the last button which not only starts the pod but also delivers his revenge, as the pod belches out a massive flame that engulfs the two soldiers who shot him. Apparently military training doesn’t include the common sense required to not stand directly behind a rocket.

Sarge, permission to deploy marshmellows, sarge!

I made it! Thank God I'm now safe from all but the most arbitrary of dangers!

Seeing as his latest jaunt into the near distant past has the potential to exonerate him, save Fielding from rotting in a foreign reality, and bring McComb to the white-collar, prison resort justice that is sorely deserved, it’s a given that the entire operation is an utter failure. JCVD arrives on a highway, appearing in front of a rig only seconds before it creates a new recipe for ballerina goulash. He has only enough time to sense the impending danger and kiss the pavement, allowing it to run harmlessly over top of him. With yet another arbitrary danger overcome, Van Damme finds a phone booth where he dictates to his Magic Future Palm Pilot, which manages to locate Fielding in a hospital from a data source powered by rainbows and maintained by unicorns. He manages to reach her and convince her to testify without incident. But while he goes to retrieve a blood sample that the hospital took from Fielding, to serve as proof that she was actually there should she not make it back, he finds a blood sample belonging to his wife’s right next to it. For some reason the vial of blood has a piece of paper attached to it, revealing that the sample was taken for a pregnancy test, which came back positive. I didn’t think they strapped a patient’s entire fucking history chart to a vial of blood in a lab, but whatever. And it’s a good thing that he went and got that sample, as when he returns to her room to collect Fields, he finds that she’s been killed. As the homicide is discovered by a nurse and hospital security is called with the impression that Van Damme did it, we see the two Wonder Hair Twins from the beginning of the movie strolling away from the crime.

Look past the tragic hair, baby! It's me!

With his mission’s lack of success taking a back seat to the news that a woman can successfully mate with a cocked trigger of badassery, Van Damme decides to make a change in his plans and head for the mall where we were first introduced to him. After all, the only thing that makes a movie better than Van Damme is having TWO Van Dammes! He rushes to meet up with his wife in that same spot before Past Van Damme has the chance to. But even in the face of impending doom, his own fate is still assigned second priority to stopping petty theft, as he takes a moment to stop the same rollerblading fruitcake from committing the preordained mugging, slapping him down and explaining that’s for what he was going to do. With justice once again done, he grabs his wife and tells her that she must come with him. They run into the service area of the mall, ducking into a storage room to avoid the Vidal Sassoon Duo who are in hot pursuit. Once they’re inside, he explains to her that he’s from the future and convinces her that he needs her help. Once she agrees, he takes her back to find Past Van Damme, telling her not to tell him anything about what she’s learned. With the wheels of fate now set in motion, taking us past the highly improbable to lead us into the land of the utterly ridiculous.

Part IV: The Cure Might Just Be Worse Than The Disease

As our journey through time, space, and bowel irritation comes to a close, the film takes us back to Van Damme’s house on that same dark and stormy night that had sealed his wife’s fate. As the Past JCVD goes to answer that same phone call that to pulled him away before, Mia goes downstairs and finds Future JCVD hanging out in their pitch black living room. As he assures her that she must find a way to keep his past version from leaving the house, they notice the lights of the fated attackers coming towards the house. His wife goes back upstairs to keep Past JCVD occupied while Future Van Damme goes outside to kick some ass. And thus begins one of the strangest siege scenes I’ve ever seen.

While Future Van Damme takes on one member of the Mighty Hair Brigade in the yard, finally killing him with the help of a clothes line, others manage to make their way inside the house, where they end up battling Past Van Damme and Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend on the roof. And really, why not? If my wife were pregnant, I can’t think of a better place for her to be in the pouring rain that climbing around on the roof. Eventually the wife manages to make it back in the house safely while Past VD gets shot in the bulletproof vest again, falling unconscious to the ground below. Finally Future VD fights his way into the house, taking out more faceless henchmen until he finally finds Future McComb holding his wife hostage. As he gives Van Damme a very tired and predictable lecture, one of his lackeys sets a ridiculous looking C4 bomb. After another brief battle between the remaining Monument to Hair Style Perfection and the two Van Dammes, Future Van Damme returns to the bedroom to find McComb and his wife still waiting there. Future McComb begins to lecture again in a feeble excuse for the scene to have some kind of dialogue that isn’t a catch phrase, but is silenced moments later when Past McComb walks in. While the two McCombs share mutual confusion as to why the hell he’s there, Future Van Damme reveals that he left a message with his Past McComb’s office in the guise of Future McComb. As Future McComb starts to grasp that this means that Past McComb can’t be saved from the blast of the bomb, Van Damme motions to his wife, who in turn wrestles away from McComb while getting shot in the shoulder in the process. But to seal their fate and finally make use of the theory that they’ve spouted several times in this movie for no particular reason, Future Van Damme kicks Past McComb into Future McComb, who stands there for an awfully long goddamn time just waiting to make fatal contact with himself. The two of them finally collide and meld together into a CG blob of gore that eventually dissipates on the floor.

I hate to burst this movie's bubble, but technically two versions of one person touching isn't the same matter occupying the same space. They would have to find some way for one to reach into the other. Still, nice CG.

But the day is not saved quite yet. With a mere thirteen seconds left on the bomb’s timer, Van Damme runs over and grabs the body of his unconscious wife, manages to run downstairs and out of the house, making it walk way down the front lawn before the timer hits zero and the bomb goes off. They fall to the ground together in a dramatic yet disgustingly standard slow-motion-falling-away-from-an-explosion shot, before he leaves her lying with his past self out in the pouring rain for the police to find. And once again, why not? Your injured and pregnant wife catching pneumonia is a hardly worth even considering.

Why not just kick her in the stomach? It would be faster at least.

The scene fades back into the future, where Van Damme arrives back at TEC Headquarters from his fantastic journey into the past. He steps out of the time travel area to find Matuzak still alive and waiting for him. When Jean Claude asks what happened to Senator McComb, Matuzak looks at him like he’s a moron. He says that McComb walked out of his office ten years ago and was never seen again. Fair enough, but if McComb’s fate was that unremarkable in this future, why does Matuzak remember that ten years later? Not only does he remember who McComb is, but he also remembers that well enough to recite all the details the moments that Van Damme asks. Satisfied with that news, Van Damme starts to walk out of the building, passing by Fielding in the hallways. Yep, things are definitely looking different. He proceeds on to his home, where his ten year old son rushes out to meet him, followed by his wife. They share a tender moment before they all go inside and the movie ends.

Hey, it's...um...you!

Before you grab a tissue and applaud the closing of that exceptional film, I’d just like everyone to stop and think about that ending for a moment. Van Damme has returned to the future to find that he was successful in saving his wife. Great. The problem is, he now has a ten year old son that he’s technically never met, since he’s from an alternate reality where that kid never existed. Not only that, but he’s lost an entire decade with his wife. What kind of fucked up hell is that? He doesn’t even know the name of his goddamn son, let alone remember any event that has occurred in his life up to this point. And can you imagine going home to a spouse that you haven’t seen or spoken to in over ten years? Seriously, what kind of fucking ending was that? But then, considering how little to do with time travel made any sense in this movie, it’s just the cherry on top of the dickcheese sundae. Enjoy.

The Verdict:

Donkey: When it comes to hilariously tragic cinema, Van Damme stands alone as the king. Once again, he has delivered a movie that has every element of shitty perfection that you could possibly ask for. It takes a horribly implausible premise in time travel and preforms it in a way that’s laughably ludicrous, adds a perplexingly underwhelming villain that is stealing money to finance something as idiotic as a presidential campaign, and finishes it off with an ending that seems happy until you stop for one moment to consider what it’s true ramifications are. When you throw in the staples of unnecessary splits and multiple Van Dammes, this movie reaches a plateau of awesomeness that few can hope to achieve. I remember when this movie first came out on video, my older brother recommended that I buy it, as it was his favorite Van Damme movie. I might not have listened to him then, but years later, I followed that advice and reaped the hilarious results. I give this movie five Buellers out of five hair stylist’s nightmares.

What We Learned:

Donkey: Apparently running for public office requires a lot more time travel than I had orignally suspected. But then, that does explain George Bush.

Don’t forget to check back every Sunday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Dolph Lundgren as he delivers a performance more plastic than the toy on which it was based in…MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE.

Back To The Main Page.

Even though Malcolm McDowell was only in the movie for about 30 seconds, they need at least one face you'll recognize.

Donkey: This week, we wrestle with one of the toughest opponents we’ve faced yet. No, not a cybernetic manatee that shoots lasers from it’s eyes and belches acid. I’m talking about nostalgia. Nostalgia is one of the most powerful forces in the world, and yet no one seems to give it the credit it deserves. It allows us to look back at those things that we once loved with so much passion and ignore their obvious flaws. But if you can see it for what it is, nostalgia can free you to love things that you have no other business loving. For example, I love the 80′s Transformers cartoon, while at the same time would describe the new movies as pointless drivel. And that’s not to say that I think the old cartoon is the pinnacle of storytelling. Far from it. If you watch them now, the majority of them are pretty goddamn stupid, as is pretty much anything aimed at children. They have to be. After all, their target demographic consists of people who believe that a cheeseburger is delicious just because a clown and pile of purple discharge tell them it is. But when I watch those cartoons even today, I can still remember running home from the corner store with exactly one dollar worth of candy and suffering through He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe just to watch it. And for just over twenty minutes, everything in the world seems so much simpler again. The new movies, on the other hand, just remind me that I’m watching a film created by a man who thinks that a series of explosions are a good substitute for a story, and that the more unnecessarily spinning shots you can fit into a film, the more likely you are to win an Oscar. And for just over two hours, the entire world seems like one massive intestinal cramp. I’ll take the candy over the diarrhea any day.

When I first suggested that we watch Fist Of The North Star, I had no idea how much history it had behind it. I remembered seeing the movie cover in the video store I worked at years earlier, and remembered the old NES game that it took its name from. But when Milobar went looking for the movie, he found that there was an older animated version of it as well, which I soon discovered was based on an old series of Japanese comics. It turns out that there’s quite the following behind these films. So while I realize that there are many Kenshiro-maniacs out there that will violently disagree with the description of their beloved movies that’s about to follow, I would simply suggest to them that they stop for one moment and ask themselves one question: Do you really think this stuff is actually good, or are you just defending something from your childhood because you loved it back when you weren’t smart enough to know better? Because after watching both versions of the film, I think I know what the answer is going to be.

The Plot:

Donkey: Depending on which version of the film you’re watching, the plot of Fist Of The North Star can vary rather significantly. It can either be the tale of Kenshiro, a deadly martial artist with the mantle of Fist of the North Star, who wanders the wastelands in an attempt to waste his life rather than simply take it himself, while his nemesis Shin plots to take over the world an bring about a new utopia while holding Kenshiro’s love interest as his own. Or the movie can also be about Kenshiro, a deadly martial artist with the mantle of First of the North Star who wanders the wastelands while Shin tries his best to accomplish little to nothing and his two brothers exert their unspeakable powers to provide confusing sidetracks. All I know is, a lot of goddamn heads explode. Little else past that makes much of any sense.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Part I: When The Bombs Fall, Only The Mediocre Will Survive

Donkey: We begin our cosmic adventure through space and time with the live action version of Fist Of The North Star, starring…Gary Daniels? Oh, that’s right: THE Gary Daniels. For those of you who don’t know who that is, fear not, you still won’t know when this movie is over.

Those scars look like they'd go well with green peppers and mushrooms on a pizza.

The movie opens with the narration of Ryuken, played by Malcolm McDowell, as he introduces the film and its main character, THE Gary Daniels as Kenshiro, Ryuken’s pupil and son. As the scene opens to a barren hellscape, Malcolm claims that all the predictions were true. The world has fallen into chaos and the flag of the Southern Cross is the flag of the new order. Now sweet, delicious freedom’s only hope is the symbol of the North Star. As we hear this, we see Kenshiro walking through the desert wastelands, just doing random karate routines while he walks that in no way make it look like humanity’s last hope is an insane drifter. Kenshiro is The Fist of the North Star, which is both obviously and very poorly represented on him physically in a series of scars across his chest that form the Big Dipper constellation. As bizarre as that might sound, keep in mind that looks these ‘scars’ look like someone tried to paste pepperoni to him using a combination of bile and mayonnaise, so it’s far worse that you think. Malcolm continues to set the scene, reaffirming with us that Kenshiro’s is in fact wandering in the wastelands while the world waits for him to fight their oppressors. I don’t want to nitpick here, but maybe someone should go fucking find him then. As the scene fades away from that uninteresting sojourn, Malcolm then changes pace and gives us the details of his own death at the hand of Shin, the Master of Southern Cross and Kenshiro’s nemesis. The scene comes back up and we finally see Malcolm sitting in a dojo, wearing an awesome satin robe that says, “I might be forced to dress like a traditional Japanese man, but I’m going to do it while looking FABULOUS!” Once the evil Shin, played by Costas Madylor (or the poor man’s Michael Paré, if you will), enters and his intention to kill Ryuken is made clear, Malcolm says that he’s ready to die and gives a speech about how the North Star and the Southern Cross are never supposed to fight. In response, Shin assures him that it’s not a fight so much as an execution, pulls out a gun and blows him away.

I've been expecting you, Fashion Police.

At this point I’d like to take a quick moment to reflect. The Southern Cross and the North Star, if I’m getting this right, are schools of martial arts. So the harsh future is ruled by the Southern Cross, a goddamn karate club. Are you kidding me? Close your eyes for a minute, picture the world as you know it coming to an end, and then tell me who you would guess would rise from the ashes to rule us all. If you can honestly say that you think it would be a fucking karate club, then I thank you for reading this movie review, Ralph Macchio.

Don't worry, when we take over this town, dancing will definitely not be made illegal.

Malcolm’s narration continues and takes us two hundred miles north, as we see the people of the ironically named Paradise Valley and their ample water supply, which is apparently a precious commodity. As an expedition returns to the village and begins handing out cans of Pepsi and various other beverages, we’re introduced to an annoying little shit named Bat, who has bleached blonde hair. So in the bleak and post-apocalyptic future, tweens still have access to hair dye, huh? This Eminem wannabe slaps at a complete stranger, annoying him by extolling the virtues of martial arts just long enough to pickpocket a can of food. He takes that food back to a small blind girl named Lynn, but before then can share in the radioactive goodness, a group of future motorcycles, led by Clint Howard, suddenly invades the town and starts setting random fires. Just behind Clint arrives Chris Penn, who sports a helmet of straps. We’ll discover why later, and trust me when I say that it’s not worth the wait, but for now we’ll just think of him as a future thug who is likely into some really fucked up S&M stuff. I know that if you’re anything like me, then right now you’re asking yourself, “two not-quite-as-good brothers of famous people…how much more awesome can this movie pack in?” That’s a fine observation, smart and excessively handsome reader. I swore when I first watched this that if Frank Stallone walked into frame, my brain would probably rip a fart so loud that I’d be rendered both deaf and insane on the spot. But fear not, as this is strictly a two brother affair. Just as it appears that all hope is lost for the hamlet of Paradise Valley, the invasion ends as quickly as it started, and with just as much motivation (read: none) for stopping as it had in the first place. The villagers all seem to forget that only seconds ago they were being run over by B-list stars, their greasy henchmen, and a notable lack of attention from the paparazzi as everyone seeks shelter as the “bad rain” starts to come down. “Bad rain” in this context is acid rain, and by acid, this movie’s not fucking around. It eats through everything like it was goddamn molten lava.

Out in the wastelands, Kenshiro halts his pointless wandering for a moment and shows up at a couple’s door, demanding shelter in a way that I’m sure is meant to be polite, but sounds more like an outright threat. They begrudgingly give it to him, and later that night he has a wet dream/flashback sequence, which shows scattered moments of Julia, the woman he loves, being forced to watch as Shin tickles his belly. Or something like that, I don’t know. The next morning he wakes in wet pants to discover that a gang is outside the shack, molesting the couple who had taken him in. The three men muscle the couple around like idiot jocks in a high school change room before one of them holds the man while the other two take the girl back towards the shack, preparing to make her colon into a clown car. But as they get close to the door, Kenshiro kicks a leg through and breaks one dude’s jaw in a way that wouldn’t be physically possible if he had one as long as a goddamn alligator. The next dude doesn’t fare much better, as Kenshiro punches him in the back and causes his chest to burst out like he was caught trying to smuggle a watermelon in his shirt. With two men down, Kenshiro engages the last man standing, first cutting his gun in half with a single strike of his hand, then punching him with a series of light taps to the chest, and ending the assault with a single tap on the forehead. The dude asks if he’s trying to tickle him to death, only to have Kenshiro walk away and proclaim that he’s already dead. As he ponders what that could possibly mean, the dude’s head starts to bulge and expand until it finally explodes. AWESOME.

Three faces of painfully stupid death.

Sometimes dudes with mullets get what's coming.

While his rival spends his days exploding heads in the desert, Shin keeps himself busy battling random blonde dudes with mullets. As his latest victim comes to his chambers, Shin says that this glorious mullet’s, “secret soul has been revealed to him”. If I’m not mistaken, especially considering that this line is being delivered in a candle filled room, I believe that’s might just be a come on. It turns out that this generic victim used to practice the Southern Cross martial arts style, which Shin has deemed that only he is allowed to know anything of. The guy swears that he abandoned that path long ago, probably because he realized that practicing your roundhouse is kind of ridiculous when you’ve got to fight through every moment of the day to survive, and tries to leave. But Shin refuses his attempts to exit, instead insisting that the dude must attack while he has the chance. The miscellaneous fodder finally relents and delivers five full strength hits to Shin’s face, as Shin calmly tells him to do it again after each strike. And not only does he ask for more, but he doesn’t as much as flinch while absorbing attacks that should have dropped a normal man. As is the case with so many movies, I don’t think the people who made this realize exactly how much a direct punch to the face hurts. After giving his prey a sporting chance, Shin proves that Kenshiro isn’t the only one with ridiculous attacks, as he assails the dude and finishes him with strikes to the chest that cause massive holes to explode out in a spray of blood. Fuck, this is insane. The only way to top this would be if you could cause someone to implode with a mere hip thrust.

Now that our two rivals have been properly introduced, the movie takes a moment to remind us of the primary object of their competition, as Julia stands looking out a window, pining for the return of what little dignity that she had before she was cast in this movie. Since all of our players have now been examined, I think we should take a moment to bask in the casting choices this movie made. They have two Englishmen and an American in the lead roles, all three of whom are obviously not Japanese, and yet they have Japanese names. The one woman in this movie who happens to be the only person of Asian descent is playing the only character that DOES NOT have a Japanese name. Well done. You couldn’t have gotten that any more fucking backwards if they were all replaced by sassy Puerto Rican robots.

To remind us as to whom she is actually supposed to be pining for, the scene fades back to Kenshiro walking, as he makes his way to the hovel that the two kids from Paradise Valley use for shelter. After they encounter one another, Eminem explains that Lynn, the young girl, is blind because her parents were killed by the Southern Cross right before her and she hasn’t seen since. Yeah, that’s shitty and all, but you guys realize that something like that can’t make you physically blind, right? After all, if seeing something truly horrendous could destroy your sense of sight, they would have needed to pass out seeing-eye dogs at the theater to people who paid to watch this bullshit. Taking pity on the girl and realizing that pretty much anything could cure her faux-ailment, Kenshiro waves his hands around her head and then presses on her temples, not quite miraculously returning Lynn’s vision to her. With his work done, Kenshiro wanders off again, as the two children notice that he’s impervious to the effects of the “bad rain”. He might be, but his clothes shouldn’t be, assholes. So why aren’t they melting off of him?

Part II: Take Me Down To Paradise Valley

Once Chris Penn is back in the presence of Shin, having returned from his impromptu invasion that he gave up on without reason, he assures Shin that their army can take the town of Paradise Valley and their water supply without a fight. Disinterested in the details, Shin tells him to just get it done. Wait, what? If Chris Penn knew that they weren’t going to fight back, why didn’t they just take over the town when they were invading it moments ago in the movie? Does this army determine whether or not they can invade a city by first invading it? That makes as much sense as testing to see if a gun is deadly by shooting yourself in the fucking head.

Karate AND zombies? Throw in pirates and this might be the greatest movie ever made.

Back in Paradise Valley, they prepare for invasion with such intelligence that they may as well be listening to John Tesh albums to inspire them. Eminem leads a shitty karate class for teenagers in the street as a random black dude throws out random proverbs that make no sense. The balance is tilted! Nature’s rejecting us! Our only hope is a man…the First of the North Star! If he’s unavailable, Jeremy Irons will suffice! I love nacho cheese! As they all occupy themselves with this idiocy, a strange kid walks up to the blind girl and tells her, in Malcolm McDowell’s voice, that she must turn Kenshiro’s heart. Elsewhere at the same time, this triggers a dream of Kenshiro’s where he envisions his father, Malcolm. After a brief talk, a random fucking zombie pops out of the ground, again speaking with Malcolm’s voice, telling Kenshiro that he’s denying his destiny. Kenshiro screams no, and then proceeds to start punching the metal roof of a car that’s standing on its roof next to him until the phantom zombie goes away. Um…okay. Like a home-schooled Mormon child seeing a Mexican donkey show for the first time, I have no idea what just happened, but I suddenly have the urge to take a shower.

The next day, the three head citizens of Paradise Valley argue about their fate. One of them continues the preparations to fight while another exclaims that diplomacy must be there strategy, and to unsuccessfully show that he’s not bat shit crazy, he’s drawn up a proposal to share equal water rights with the city of Southern Cross. With little resolved, the scene fades back to Kenshiro as he begins a training routine that would have to be considered insane if we hadn’t seen Van Damme’s performance in Double Team. He begins by punching more random metal structures as he has flashbacks again of the beating that he received at Shin’s hands. Then he steps it up a notch and makes us once again think lovingly back to Van Damme, as he does the splits just to show that he can. But just to put the cherry on top, he then picks up a large rock nearly the size of his torso and squeezes it in a screaming hug until it explodes. Yes, it fucking EXPLODES. Just then he hears some commotion and turns to see two dudes hassling Eminem about twenty feet away. Apparently they didn’t hear him screaming and shattering rocks only seconds ago, as they pay him no mind. He walks over and beats them without question, even though they could have just caught Eminem molesting their kids for all he knows. As Kenshiro begins to walk away, Eminem asks him to return to Paradise Valley to help defend it from the Southern Cross. As he’s in the middle of refusing the request, Kenshiro sees that one of the dude’s is wearing a jacket that has Julia’s picture on the back of it. What the fuck is that? How was this cat issued a goddamn jacket with her picture on it? Suddenly enraged, Kenshiro beats the guy some more to prove no point whatsoever and then turns to head off to the south. Eager to continue his role of annoying the shit out of me, Eminem follows behind him, but runs out of steam and falls to the ground. I guess a lot of time has passed only seconds later, as it shows Eminem lying in the same spot, almost completely buried in dirt. How the fuck long was he lying there? Giving the only response that is reasonable in this situation, Kenshiro comes back to find the kid half buried and laughs.

Seriously, how tired was this kid?

As the invading army of the Southern Cross stands on the edge of Paradise Valley, ready to engage in a little deja vu, Chris Penn gives his men a pre-invasion speech. “Let’s kill some people. Let’s kill them, and let’s enjoy it.” Well done. That speech is so inspirational that I could swear that William Wallace and Tony Robbins had sex and then aborted that speech to avoid having to cancel their plans to go to college. But somehow he doesn’t damper the mood too badly, and they proceed to invade the same damn town again, raping and burning as they go. At one point, Chris Penn turns to the camera and quips, “It ain’t easy being sleazy.” Again, that’s fucking amazing. You have a joke that’s a reference to a goddamn Cheetos ad in your movie? That’s fucking classy. But again the invasion continues in a flood of mass death and carnal sin, all shown in slow motion with dramatic music so that you hopefully won’t notice how unimpressive it is. Witnessing the poorly produced horror, Lynn screams. I’d like to think that she’s thanking Kenshiro for giving her back her vision just in time to see this. Meanwhile, Kenshiro hears that cry from the wastelands and realizing that he has no choice, he turns back in that direction to rescue her.

With the complete domination of the city over faster than you can back a Pizza Pop, the three leaders of Paradise Valley once again meet, this time on their knees in front of Chris Penn. The two of them that had been for fighting still choose to resist, while the third guy who was pushing for diplomacy earlier is once again begging to negotiate. In a swift and decisive response, Chris Penn has the third leader killed, declaring that there will be no negotiation, no hope for the future. Trying to manufacture another dramatic moment, he then looks at the camera and says, “Welcome to the future.” This movie is about as good at subtlety as it is, well pretty much everything else, but I have to admit that’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever heard. The next morning Lynn is put into a guillotine for defending an old woman trying to get water, but just as the blade begins to fall, declares that Kenshiro will come to destroy them. Chris Penn, of course, recognizes the name and saves her at the last moment. Apparently only he, Chairy, Jambi, Conky, and perhaps the King Of Cartoons know that Kenshiro just happens to be the Word of the Day.

Back in the Murdering Heights suburb of Eviltown, also known as Southern Cross, the movie shows a brief scene of Shin in his office. He cuts his finger and allows the blood to drip out on blueprints a set of blueprints before him. As each drop hits the paper, it immediately bursts into a small flame. With that poignant yet meaningless concept relayed, the scene ends. Goddamn, what can’t these people do?

The next time we see Shin, he makes grand proclamations about his future to Julia as she lays in bed, bored and high as a kite from sniffing glue. He begs her to see that he’s saving the world with modern technology like – get ready for it – aqueducts. But still in the face of such brilliant technology, she somehow manages to stay cold to him. Frustrated and ready to stroke it to a Sears catalogue, Shin departs, leaving Julia to sniff a lot more glue. Instead she cracks open a chest that has armor in it and a small bag of seeds. With that little bit of nostalgia searching her brain for a sign of basic functionality, it is finally time for a full blown flashback that shows us the origin of the conflict:

The glorious vision of the past starts with Julia and Kenshiro having a moment alone somewhere when he gives her the seeds in hopes that it will get her in the mood to also take his obvious virginity. He tells her that the seeds that he’s giving her are the future and that she now holds the future in her hands. Underwhelmed, Julia says that she’ll protect them, but that Kenshiro must now protect himself. He looks over his shoulder just then to see Shin and Chris Penn strolling up with a small group of soldiers. After a brief exchange that couldn’t be more pointless if they had instead sung the first half of Steve Perry’s smash hit Oh Sherrie, Shin gives Chris Penn permission to attack, only to have him fall victim to Kenshiro’s head exploding technique. But just as his skull goes “Sloth love Chunk” on his ass, Chris Penn straps his head down to prevent it from exploding. Awesome. Kenshiru then pleads with Shin to show restraint, reminding him of the old rule declaring that Southern Cross and North Star must never fight. Shin says that rule is true, but does not apply in this case as there is no North Star. With their destinies apparently set, they have no choice but to engage in talentless-to-talentless combat. The battle begins with them jump kicking at each other simultaneously. And just as their legs collide in the air, the impact produces a flash of lightning. That’s right. Lightning. After a lot of unimpressive fighting, capped by an axe kick directly to Kenshiro’s balls, his men hold Kenshiro in place while Shin plunges his finger into Kenshiru’s chest, which has to be the oddest attack seen yet in this movie. Shin tells Julia to say that she loves him or he won’t stop. She relents, just as Shin hits Kenshiro with a four finger assault that drops him like an unsuccessful sit-com pilot. Shin then leaves Kenshiro to die with the parting knowledge that he also killed his father, Ryuken, before leaving with his Asian prize, leaving us to wonder if he mean to have the wounds form the Big Dipper, or is that just a horrible coincidence.

Hold still you pussy, so I can finish drawing this unicorn.

With the memory coming to an end, Julia comes back to the present just as Shin knocks the seeds out of her hands and tells her to stop living in the past. One falls into a crack in the marble floor where it will undoubtedly become significant at a later point.

Having likely wasted enough time at every tourist trap on the way, Kenshiro and Eminem finally make their way into the tunnel system below Paradise Valley where they come across a girl that’s been thoroughly abused. Kenshiru leaves Eminen to care for the strange girl while he proceeds on to find Lynn as she’s being tormented by a massive jailer. Eager to show off unimpressive skills, he busts in and gives the dude the business. Seeing her chance for escape while the two of them are engaged, Lynn runs down the tunnels trying to find her way out, making it only a short distance before Chris Penn comes out of the darkness and grabs her. But just as he’s about to take her back, Eminem steps in to fight. While it looks like this may turn out to be one of the most hilariously awesome fights of the movie, it ends quickly when Chris Penn pulls a knife, stabs Eminem, and yells, “Look out, he’s got a knife!” Damn. Here I was hoping that Chris Penn would have a flashback to the time that Kevin Bacon taught him how to dance, only to then reveal that he also taught him the mystic art of Kung Fu. But alas, it will have to wait for Footloose II since it’s not the case here. Back in town, Kenshiro fights his way out into the town square where he defeats the giant jailor in front of the gathered populace and then takes on a whole slew of soldiers. Just as one of them is about to surrender to Kenshiro for no reason, Chris Penn takes aim at Kenshiro with a sniper rifle. Just as he’s about to fire, Eminem hits him in the back, causing him to miss and hit the surrendering soldier instead. Kenshiro races back to the scene just in time to see Eminem die. He steps over to Chris Penn to kill him, just as Lynn floats into the air an illuminates, speaking in his father’s voice, telling him that revenge is beneath him. He must face Shin, not to avenge the past, but to shape the future. That’s a pretty flimsy argument, don’t you think? He could say that killing Chris Penn would prevent him from hurting anyone else from that point on. In fact, he could say that any shitty thing that he did was in an effort to shape the future. Instead they send Chris Penn on his way, telling him to tell Shin that the flag of the North Star flies over Paradise Valley. I’m guessing that flag involves the Big Dipper and blistering inexperience at the art of pleasing woman.

Part III: And I Thought The Face-off Between Cage And Travolta Was Shitty…

There's only room for one fabulous mane in this world, and this unfortunate vest says it's me.

Chris Penn relays the message a moment later, and Shin declares that Julia must never know that Kenshiro’s still alive. To prevent this, naturally, he moves her down into a fucking boiler room alone with Chris Penn to watch over her. Yeah, she won’t think anything strange is going on at all. Of course, once the two of them are alone together, Chris Penn tries to seduce her with his literal throbbing head and she obviously resists. At the same time, Kenshiro enters the city of Sothern Cross and then a building where he lays waste to a couple dozen guys before he poses for a random, unnecessary zooming close up. But with that, it’s time for the final boss fight! Kenshiro makes his way into Shin’s personal quarters, which he seemed to accomplish a little too easily. Seeing his enemy, Shin removes his jacket to reveal one of the most unfortunate vests I’ve ever seen. They begin to fight, stopping only to primp their mullets. Of course, if we were to examine the developments of the movie thus far, we’d see that this entire battle is pointless. If Shin’s blood is flammable, why isn’t he spitting it in Kenshiro’s face? And if Kenshiro can make a man’s head explode with a series of punches, why not do that right away? Regardless, to get the upper hand, Shin tells Kenshiru that Julia is already dead. Distracted, Kenshiro pretty much stops fighting altogether, instead trying to hold off Shin with pouty looks and silent poetry. To finish him off, Shin hits Kenshiro with a special flaming attack that causes veins in his arms and chest to burst, spraying blood everywhere. This idiocy would kill an ordinary man. So I guess it’s a good thing that he’s THE Gary Daniels. As he falls to the ground, about as hurt as he would have been if he had slammed his finger in a car door, he sees a plant growing through the floor where Julia had dropped them. He then gets up, as if he’s fucking fine, and kicks Shin’s ass. At the same time downstairs, Julia manages to fight off Chris Penn by getting his straps caught in moving, arbitrary cogs. Once his head is released, his fate is sealed as his head explodes.

Any martial artist can tell you that losing three pints of blood is only a flesh wound.

Back upstairs, just as Kenshiro is putting the final moves on Shin, Shin once again reminds us that the Southern Cross and the North Star should never have fought. Kenshiro says that’s true, but there is no Southern Cross. OH SNAP! I know that’s supposed to be some profound reflection of the movie’s opening, but that just doesn’t make any sense. That’s just fucking stupid. You’ve now both ignored some ancient rules without any reprisal. Kenshiro finally drops Shin, who then once again tells him that Julia’s dead before he dies himself. But just before we leave this shit, I’d like to point out that Kenshiro just had major arteries explode and somehow he’s fine, and at the same time managed to hit Shin with nothing more dramatic than a series of ordinary punches and kicks, and that motherfucker’s dead. Go figure.

As Kenshiro steps out to face the rest of Shin’s men who are conveniently waiting outside, they all stop and bow as Julia steps into the room. She and Kenshiro share a rather underwhelming moment together, with the men all continuing to bow as they embrace. And with that, the movie ends as confusingly as it began.

Part IV: The Apocalypse In Technicolor

The original animated movie of Fist Of The North Star obviously shares many of the same idiocies as the live action one, so for the sake of your sanity and ours, we’ll only detail the aspects of the movie that are different.

The movie opens with a nuclear holocaust and its quite graphically bloody results, as Ryuken once again describes the situation. After the fallout, existence has became about finding uncontaminated food and water, where only the strong survive. So at least the set up in this movie makes a little more goddamn sense. It also explains that Shin and Kenshiro used to be close friends until he brought Julia into the picture. That also might have been handy to know.

They show the origin scene of Kenshiro’s scars right away, which is quite similar to the live action version. Once again Shin dives his finger into Kenshiro’s chest while Julia is forced to watch, and it’s just as stupid seeing it a second time. The biggest difference is that once the fight is over, an unnamed character picks Kenshiro up off the ground, takes him over to a giant crevasse, and tosses him over. Kenshiro slams into rock precipices all the way down before he eventually disappears into the darkness. Hmmmm….he really should be dead in this one, then. Finger stabs are one thing, but falling about four hundred feet should make for a pretty bad day.

Having just seen them in action, the most immediate difference that you’ll notice between the animated and live action movies, of course, is the characters’ appearance. Shin’s got a sweet blonde mane that would make him the perfect drummer for Skid Row or perhaps Slaughter, and he’s wearing an outfit with the greatest shoulder pads ever conceived by man. Meanwhile, Kenshiro’s eyebrows look like he stapled dead beagles to his forehead. And everyone in this movie has some of the most bizarre proportions imaginable. It’s like they’re an upside down triangle, as they have really skinny legs and a gradually thickening torso that ends with shoulders the size of a Buick, topped with remarkably tiny heads.

In the future, personal grooming takes a backseat to shoulder pad size.

Another difference with this version is the way the movie introduces Bat and Lynn, and the way they first meet Kenshiro. The two kids start by tearing across an open plain, then through the ruins of a city in a massive hot rod that Bat apparently built himself for his seventh birthday, being followed by thugs on motorcycles. The chase concludes with them crashing their car out the windows of an abandoned building, falling from the forty third floor before landing on the ground and crashing into debris. And though the thugs catch up to them after the fall, they’re quite unhurt. Apparently gravity is everyone’s best friend in this movie. As they’re being hassled by the thugs, we that not only does Lynn have seeds as well, but she has the power to stop a full grown man from stomping on her. As he steps down on her harder, she lets out a scream that causes some dude made out of stone to come to life in the distance. The thing starts smashing down buildings with single punches as it slowly walks over to them and as he approaches, the rock falls away from the figure to reveal that it’s actually a man. Would you know it, it’s KENSHIRO! Wow, that makes the whole ‘smashing down buildings’ thing even fucking dumber. He walks over, takes an arrow to the chest without flinching, and then picks up the dude who was standing on Lynn by the head with one hand, crushing his skull. The others attack, only for the entire gang to be killed by head exploding hilarity.

After the slaughter is complete, Bat and Kenshiro are hanging out in a random shack where Kenshiro is relaxing on a cot while Bat explains that Lynne is a mute, and that she hasn’t spoken a word since watching her parents burn alive during the war. Meanwhile, more cyberpunks attack outside and somehow get their hands on Lynn. Again it’s time for Kenshiro to show how ridiculously powerful he is in this movie. Sensing the danger, he gets off his bed and it explodes. He the opens the door to the shack and it fucking explodes. Goddamn. At this rate, the entire world would shatter if this dude farted. Slowly walking towards the thug holding Lynn, Kenshiro disposes of the rest of the gang as they all charge him only to have their heads explode after a single punch. Keep in mind, he doesn’t even do that shitty punching combo in this version. It’s literally every single goddamn punch that causes it. Finally reaching the dude holding Lynn, who for some reason becomes more than twice Kenshiru’s size in one shot, then five times bigger in the next, Kenshiro unleashes the punching combination of awesomeness. After being knocked down by the assault, the thug gets back up and just as Kenshiru gives the “you’re already dead” line. For some reason at this point the dude is now easily ten times the size of Kenshiro. And of course, the dude’s head explodes. With another battle completed, Kenshiro celebrates by shaving his beard off and curing Lynn of her muteness before wandering off.

Left to right: big, bigger, retarded.

Part V: O Brother, Where Art Thou? Probably Exploding Shit.

The Sub-Zero to Shin's Scorpion: Ray.

Another one of the major differences with the animated version of the film is the number of extra characters, starting with a random dude named Ray. We first see him as he is faced off against a single man out in the middle of nowhere. He rips the dude’s arms off with his bare hands as he asks for information on the whereabouts of the Fist of the North Star. He then walks into the village that Kenshiro just left, only to find yet another group of bandits there, this time claiming to be followers of the Fist of the North Star as they torture and kill the villagers. He kills them all by cutting them to pieces with slow moving karate chops, just before Kenshiro shows up at the last minute and takes the last punk out with a head explosion of his own. Trying to discover why a group of cyberpunks are oppressing people in his name, at this point they introduce us to yet another new character, when it’s revealed that Kenshiro has a brother named Jagi. Through a random flashback, we see that Jagi is an older brother who was jealous of Kenshiro’s success. He tried to kill Kenshiro only to end up on the receiving end of Kenshiro’s famed head explosion technique. Fortunately, he was able to stop it by stabbing his thumbs into his neck to relieve the pressure. But it left him horribly disfigured, which is why he now wears an iron mask.

Don't kick much further, Kenshiro, or your foot will end up covered in Twinkies and Chili Dogs.

Kenshiro and Ray decide to work together and stop the Jagi menace, traveling to his hideout only to run into a giant fat man guarding the entrance. And I do mean giant, as once again this dude is over ten times the size of Kenshiro. Undaunted, Kenshiro screams and kicks a hole into the dude’s stomach. It doesn’t finish him at first, but soon the fat bastard falls on his back and instead of just his head, his entire fucking body explodes. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? After they make their way inside, Kenshiro and Ray finally come face to face with Jagi. It turns out that Jagi is holding Ray’s sister hostage, and he demands that Ray fight Kenshiro to the death while holding a gun to her head. After some preteen taunting, Jagi finally agrees to put the girl aside and fight Kenshiro himself, which somehow moves them up to a fucking rooftop. Jagi takes off his helmet and we see that it was actually him at the beginning of the movie that threw Kenshiro over the cliff. He also reveals that it was him who convinced Shin that Julia actually loved him, not Kenshiro, and caused the fight between them. Hearing the news, Kenshiro becomes alight with flames that burn off his shirt, but strangely not his pants, and he destroys the rooftop with a single punch. They fall to the base of the building where Kenshiro let’s Jagi break several huge chunks of rock over him before hitting him once again with a head exploding attack that finishes the job he started years ago. Meanwhile, Ray literally cuts Jagi’s men to pieces with his hands and finally saves his sister.

You two will re-enact the Mr. Plow episode of The Simpsons for my pleasure.

The last important figure that’s missing from the live action movie is a man named Raoh, who is apparently yet another brother of Kenshiro. We first meet him after Kenshiro was defeated and tossed to his presumed demise at the beginning of the film, when he visits Ryuken to demand that he be named the new Fist of the North Star. Ryuken refuses, saying that Raoh lacks perception. In response, Raoh has a hissy fit and punches to giant stone statues, causing them to explode. He catches their massive stone heads in his suddenly huge arms, only to flex and shatter them. Fuck, everyone in this movie is super badass. Still not impressed, however, Ryuken expels him, telling Raoh to never return to the dojo again.

This movie laughs at the idea of proportion almost as much as it does consistency.

No one can resist the searing power of my urinary tract infection!

The next time we see Raoh, he is leading a massive army, for reasons we don’t know, as it faces off against a barbarian horde, whose giant fucking general somehow turns his skin to metal. Sure, why not. An orgy of violence then ensues as the two armies clash. Once the barbarian general makes his way to him, Raoh hits the dude with energy beams that come out his chest and hand. Energy beams, huh? Yeah, I guess that’s plausible. At this point it’s no fucking dumber than anything else this movie throws at us. These beams cause the barbarian general to, naturally, explode as columns of skin burst out through the steal coating. After the brief battle, Raoh and his men them move on face their next target: Shin’s army. The scene transitions to Shin as he gets the news of the coming invasion, and also about Kenshiro killing his brother Jagi. Julia is of course present at the time, and for some reason when she hears this news, reacts by ripping her clothes off. All of them. With one hand. And yet, she doesn’t have nipples. Fuck, I just can’t keep up with this madness. She then escapes down secret tunnels to try to find Kenshiro, only to run into Raoh. Raoh and Shin face off soon after. We don’t see what happens, but moments later Kenshiro arrives and finds Shin on his throne. They face off in a battle even faster than the one at the end of the live action film, as Kenshiro finishes him with one set of punches. Before he dies, Shin explains that Raoh has taken Julia, just after he shows off the wedding dress that she was supposed to wear, which took ten seamstresses a year to make. What? One dress and it took a year? I hope he didn’t pay by the hour.

Part VI: The End, Again.

Sure you can fly, Kenshiro, but so can my horse! Suck on that!

The movie comes to a climax as we see Julia being held by Raoh and his army. He puts her on a fifty foot crucifix for the crime of having a flower, which had been smuggled to her in her jail cell by Bat and Lynn. Way to go, kids. The first person on the scene is Ray, who ends up fighting Raoh’s second in command. As you can probably guess by now, this dude is once again fucking massive compared to Ray, but still ends up being cut to pieces by Ray’s special karate chops of power. Knowing that he can’t win but that he needs to buy some time, Ray then faces Raoh only to have his predictions come true and end up being slapped down like a little girl. Kenshiro, who takes his fucking time wandering over, finally arrives just as the killing blow is landed. With the stage set, the two combatants face off, fighting with the expected ton of magical bullshit, which absolutely destroys the landscape around them. First they engage while floating about a hundred feet off the ground, so I guess that means these assholes can fly too. They continue to fight back on land, causing each other’s arteries to explode, making for one massive human fountain as blood sprays out of both of them. The battle ends when they drive their hands into each other’s chest and fall to the ground together. Raoh is the first to get back up, but just as he is about to stomp Kenshiro one last time and put an end to all our suffering, Lynn walks up and asks to talk. Feeling particularly and unexplainably charitable for some reason, Raoh listens. She asks him to spare Kenshiro’s life and he does, claiming that he’s got a new purpose in life: to protect her. WHAT?! How the fuck did that come about? But just to make it extra hilarious, as he walks away assuring her that Kenshiro and everything else will be alright, another artery in his shoulder erupts for no reason and sprays blood everywhere.

Aaarrrgggghhhh! I need insulin!

The movie then ends with the two kids finding flowers growing in the dirt in the middle of the city, then with Kenshiro walking through a stormy desert where he hallucinates that he finds a lush forest oasis looming up before him with Julia inside it. Neither of which are real, it turns out. And that’s it, that’s where it ends. WHAT?!

The Verdict:

Donkey: After watching the live action version of Fist Of The North Star, we honestly didn’t think that it would be possible for the animated original movie to make less sense. But then, I wasn’t prepared to see random dudes become more and more inexplicably massive with each glance, people explode like it was a bodily function, and plot twists that make less sense than P-Puff-Puffy Diddy-Daddy giving a lecture on artistic integrity. I know that most fans of the original movie and comic books consider THE Gary Daniels and the movie version that he starred in to be a missive letdown in comparison. And while I will grant you that movie is a steaming turd, the original animated feature is no prize pig either. As with any Japanimation cartoon, the illustration was extremely well done. But that’s about as nice a thing as I can bring myself to say about it. At the very least, THE Gary Daniels and company took a meandering, non-sensical story and simplified it so that you could almost tell what the hell was going on. I award both movies 4 exploding heads out of 5 mullets of power.

What We Learned:

Donkey: If you’re going to make a movie based on an old Japanese comic book, hire Japanese actors. Or at least Asian actors, for Christ’s sake. It’s not like THE Gary Daniels brought some kind of legitimacy or box office clout that any random person off the streets of Tokyo couldn’t have matched. Watching a movie filled with white people named Kenshiro, Ryuken, and Shin is about as fucking stupid as watching a movie where Japanese people are named Montgomery, Winston, or Ted. It just insults us all.

Don’t forget to check back every Saturday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Sylvester Stallone arm wrestles for love of his son and the right to keep on trucking in…OVER THE TOP.

Back To The Main Page.

That banner above the movie's title might just be the greatest trifecta of insanity known to man, and yet it still can't prepare you for what's to come.

Donkey: There are few jobs that can be better for an avid lover of cinema than working at a video store. I had the fortune of doing just that for a couple of years in my late teens, and apart from being a pretty damned easy job, it also provided me with a cache of memorable moments to look back on for years to come. Some were enraging, some were hilarious, and some left me in a state of confused wonder. One such case happened in the adult section of the store. For some bizarre reason, the store’s office could only be accessed by going through the adult movie section, so when it came time to cash out at the end of your shift, you had to make that journey and cause significant discomfort to anyone who was in there, perusing the selection of spank material. But as I was making the trek one day, I was stopped by a man who asked me, “So what’s good in here?” It took a moment for the question to even register, and then another moment to actually believe what I had heard. This was basically tantamount to asking me, “So what do you suggest I jerk off to?” I pointed him in the direction of women-over-forty section, reassuring him with a haughty thumbs up and moved on as quickly as possible, wondering who the hell asks that goddamn question to a stranger in a porn room.

But that confusing ordeal was nothing compared to the day I first put copies of Double Team on the store’s new release wall. I had never heard of the film before, which was surprising when you consider how many Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and various other critical awards that it didn’t win. Seriously, I think new flavors of Nerds candy get more advertising than this movie ever did. But looking at the cast of this movie, proudly displayed on its cover, it was clear that advertising was the least of its problems. Jean Claude Van Damme. A fine choice, as he always brings the awesome. Mickey Rourke. A sure sign of B-movie quality, since this was before his triumphant return in recent years and during the time that he was being used to describe the severe phobia of showers. And then there was…Dennis Rodman? Could this movie possibly be as bad as it promised to be? It was a question that haunted my dreams for over a decade until we finally got the answer: no. It’s worse. Much, much worse.

The Plot:

Donkey: If you, like me, have ever wondered what a Bond movie would be like if James Bond had spent less time spreading crotch fungus and more time doing the splits and showing off his balls, then Double Team is the movie for you. If you can stop drooling long enough to clap your hands and smile when there are loud explosions on the screen, then this movie is for you too. If you’re a fan of coherent plots and passable acting, then this movie is not for you.

Double Team is the tale of Jack Quinn, a government agent whom has been brought out of retirement to make one last attempt to capture Stavros, his deadly rival played by Mickey Rourke. When this attempt fails, JCVD is proclaimed dead to the world and shipped off to a secret island, where he is made to join a secret counter-terrorist organization. But when Rourke takes JCVD’s pregnant wife hostage, JCVD has no choice but to go rogue and escape the island, seeking the help of an arms dealer with a heart of gold and a head covered in Technicolor despair named Yaz, played by Dennis Rodman, in a desperate attempt to save his family.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Donkey: The movie begins with the final mission of JCVD’s assuredly illustrious career as a government agent. A career that has undoubtedly been filled with thrills, spills, and unnecessary groin stretching. He’s been sent to recapture a truckload of plutonium that was stolen from a military base outside of Croatia before it can be sold to the Iraqis. There we have it folks. After all the whining done by the liberal elite and their ridiculous need for “facts”, this movie answers where Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were. You’re welcome, Bush administration. The scene begins with JCVD standing in an empty warehouse in front of a very fancy looking truck.

The plastic over the truck would fool all but the best government agent.

Moments later that same truck comes bursting through the large cargo doors of the warehouse, diving down and smashing through other vehicles in its path. This scene then turns into the truck making an incredibly stereotypical Bond-like getaway as it’s being chased and shot at by unidentified soldiers, which culminates in the truck coming up to a train crossing just as a train begins to go by. Undaunted, the truck takes an unexplainable and ridiculously high jump, smashing through the top of one of the train’s cars before landing on the other side and continuing along on its way. I don’t really understand this whole opening scene. He’s stealing back plutonium by stealing a fancy truck that was left alone in an empty warehouse? The scene is therefore suggesting that the group of rogue bandits stole a truck full of plutonium and then left the plutonium on that truck alone in a warehouse without leaving so much as a single guard behind to watch over it. The only way you could find a group that stupid is if they had left to go produce an Asylum film. But even if you look past that massive elephant in the room of logic, you’re still faced with a second elephant that is waiting to rape your brain. The truck begins the scene with a small trailer attached to its back end, and by the end of getaway, that trailer’s gone. So he either ended up stealing back the truck and leaving the plutonium behind, or they had a trailer attached to it purely for aesthetical purposes. Either way, I feel like someone just pissed down my throat via my nostrils after eating a metric ton of asparagus.

But with that introduction to the madness that is to come complete, the film moves on to the South of France, three years later where JCVD appears to be enjoying his well-earned retirement as he’s flirting with his wife by reaching under her dress to tickle her mysterious lady parts in their pool. Suddenly they turn to see some random dude standing at the side of their pool, beaconing for Van Damme’s attention. The random agent, whom we’ll call Sergeant Expendable, has come to coax JCVD back into service. He refuses at first, of course, insisting that he’s retired, but Sergeant Expendable pulls out every persuasive cliché that he can think of, first telling Van Damme that he obviously misses the game, and then appealing to Jean Claude’s personal pride by telling him that Stavros has returned. Stavros, of course, is the film’s antagonist and JCVD’s rival, played by the outstanding Mickey Rourke.

The face of the enemy is a horribly plastic, disfigured one.

As JCVD is left to ponder the assault on his pride that must have been equal to agreeing to be in this picture in the first place, the movie cuts to Rome where Sergeant Expendable sits down in his car, only to be held at gunpoint by Mickey Rourke, who was waiting in the back seat. Rourke babbles on about being thankful that this guy managed to bring JCVD back into the game, because now it will be fun again. He then gets out of the car and tells Sergeant Expendable that he’s left a little surprise behind. We then see a bomb attached to the back of the driver’s seat that’s only got a few seconds left on its timer. Sergeant Expendable tries to dive out his door, but his elbow accidentally pushes down the lock. So naturally his attempts to open his door are in vain as his pathetic flails are mercifully ended by the explosion. So once again the legacy of the great Remo Williams continues, as yet another government agent is defeated by the basic workings of a common door. But now that I think about it, what the fuck was the point of this scene? Just to watch a random government agent die? A scene of Mickey Rourke trimming his toenails while humming the theme song of The A-Team would be just as goddamn relevant.

Sorry, Jean Claude. RuPaul passed on the script so you're stuck with me.

Our next stop on this random tour of the globe stops in Antwerp, as it appears that JCVD is perusing the red light district. He goes into the backroom of an S&M club and finds Yaz, played by Dennis Rodman, who is in the middle of getting a tattoo. Their introductory banter quickly turns to Dennis’s hair which looks like it was dyed by someone who hated the world but sadly chose cosmetology over the biological training required to create the super virus that could destroy it. And the truly great part about Dennis Rodman’s hair in this film is that it changes from one ridiculously insane color and pattern scheme to another in each scene of the film. This means that unless Dennis is actually bald and just wearing a different hair-like helmet every day that the movie is suggesting that he’s actually stopping every night to carry out a ridiculous dye job that would take hours. But it’s back to business now, as apparently Rodman is an arms dealer and JCVD has come to do a little bit of last minute shopping. Strange, as you’d think if JCVD was a government agent, the government would supply him with as many weapons as he needed. But they distract us from this thought as we’re treated to the first of many basketball references with the following unmotivated exchange:

JCVD: “Offense gets the glory.”

Rodman: “But defense wins the game.”

If that idiotic quip seems like it was shoehorned into the movie about as gracefully as a fat man unwrapping a Twix bar after a four day fast, you still have no idea how right you are. And that’s just fucking stupid. Do we really need to point out the fact that Dennis Rodman is a goddamn basketball player? Really? If Steven Tyler was playing a goddamn doctor in the film, would you have him say, “Sure I can perform the surgery to save your ailing infant, ma’am, but first BWWAAAACHAAABAAWWWW ROCK!”

JCVD apparently found what he was looking for as he’s soon back to meeting with his strike team, forming a strategy on how they’re going to ambush and capture Rourke, which is going to be done in an amusement park. The plan takes about thirty seconds to go over, and it consists of, “Who’s my sniper? You? Good, shoot him with this converted tranquillizer sniper rifle”. And that’s it. What a great fucking plan. With all that preparation being done, I don’t see what could possibly go wrong.

The film then transitions to the fateful amusement park scene, where it’s a rainy night and the perfect time to be riding a rollercoaster. As the government team is set up all over the area, looking highly suspicious and not even remotely undercover, Rourke and his men arrive. But JCVD’s spidey-senses begin tingling and he detects that something is wrong. He declares that the group that his team is watching is the wrong group. JCVD shouts for someone to find the driver of the car that Rourke’s group had arrived in, and eventually they pan over to where we see Mickey standing in ridiculous high top sneakers that go half way up to his knee. A woman walks up to him, opens her trench coat and reveals Rourke’s young son. Lady, why the hell was that kid in your coat? He looks a little old to be riding around in your womb. Mickey suddenly realizes that he’s being ambushed as he cuddles with his son, so he leaps up and shoots the sniper perched next to Van Damme, whom we remember is quite literally the sole recipient of the mission’s ‘plan’. And please note that he shoots her from about one hundred yards away. Through her sniper scope. Into her eye. Seriously. That’s awesome. I’m surprised he didn’t just accomplish the same thing by kicking a bullet in her direction. And since the only part of the ‘plan’ is now dead, all hell breaks loose as people start firing guns all over the damn place, which eventually results in Mickey Rourke’s wife/girlfriend/personal oiler and child being gunned down. After taking a moment to show just the right amount of action movie despair over the loss of his only child (2.3 seconds), Rourke flees the scene only to be pursued by JCVD. During this time, we see that they both have this bizarre slow-down vision, like a shitty precursor to The Matrix, which allows them to dodge bullets. So I guess these two are super heroes, and ones that prove to be about as useful as the Silver Surfer.

The pain! The sexy, sexy pain!

Eventually JCVD follows Rourke into a dark and abandoned building, which appears to be a hospital, where soon the mono-e-grease-o face off will begin. Rourke is waiting for JCVD in what appears to be the hospital’s nursery, as he’s surrounded by babies in cribs. Wait, if there are still babies in this hospital, then why isn’t there anyone else there? Shouldn’t there be nurses, or maybe even a security guard or two? Or when shit started hitting the fan, did the staff say, “Fuck it, these things haven’t been around long enough for anyone to have gotten really attached to them…leave the babies and make a break for it”? And once his battle with Van Damme finally begins, Rourke leverages these tiny hostages as he sends a crib rolling towards JCVD that has both a baby and a grenade it in. Jean Claude quickly tosses the grenade into an open elevator and starts to run with the crib, just before the explosion goes off behind him. JCVD makes a face that looks like he just made a romance explosion in his pants as he falls, passed out, and the scene fades to black.

JCVD wakes up slowly, bandaged and in a strange bed. He sits up to see a computer next to him, as a narrator is going through a profile of him that will soon turn into an A&E Biography. It flashes what I would assume is an old picture of Van Damme as a toddler, and then one of him as a very young boy. That’s got to be one of the greatest pictures I’ve ever seen.

With a haircut like that, you know you're going to have to learn how to fight.

The narrator concludes by saying that JCVD was charged with capturing Rourke, but he failed because he went soft. I’m not really sure what happened in the last scene that would constitute saying that he went soft. He should have just left that baby to explode and continued on after Rourke, I guess. But the baby-hating narrator continues, saying that JCVD still has usefulness, despite his failings, so he’s been brought to…THE COLONY. Of course, if Van Damme doesn’t like it, he’s perfectly welcome to kill himself. If he knew what was to come, Jean Claude might have taken that option much more seriously. But seriously, what kind of fucking job did JCVD have that was so unforgiving that if you didn’t catch your prey after a single attempt, they made it look like you were dead and took you to an island colony to live out the rest of your life in forced servitude?

Regardless, JCVD goes out the front door of the house that he’s laying in and is greeted by his biographer’s narrator, played by Paul Freeman or as most people will know him, Belloq from Raiders Of The Lost Ark, who is standing by a golf cart. Belloq gathers up JCVD and takes him for the grand tour of the Island of Misfit Toys. We soon discover that everyone on the island is someone that was supposed to have died, being either a government agent or one of their rivals. As Van Damme’s being introduced to people next to a swimming pool, we find out that one of those people is an old BFF of Van Damme’s that he thought he had killed. This guy rises out of the pool, comes over the shake Van Damme’s hand to tell him there are no hard feelings, and punches JCVD in the face before the two of them are separated.

JCVD is then presented with a watch, which he must wear at all times on the island. It also functions as a pager, with an LCD screen that tells him when he must return to his room and check in using a thumbprint scanner. Everyone then moves into a giant communications chamber where we see the entire point of this island. This group of Hawaiian shirt wearing middle-aged men is an agency that keeps governments as clients and deciphers information regarding terrorist activities for said clients. They do so by sitting around a massive holographic display where they are monitored as they assess incoming information and computer simulations. The first example that they deal with involves a passenger jet which the White House Press Secretary is claiming in a press conference was shot down by Koreans. They look at the flight data and various recreations, as JCVD watches the press conference over and over again, until finally he declares that the Press Secretary is lying. Upon hearing this, they discover evidence that this is the case and congratulations are passed out accordingly. So to sum up what we’ve just seen, JCVD’s expertise literally just came down to saying, “that dude’s lying” without giving so much as a reason why he believed that was the case. Awesome.

Moments later we see JCVD standing out on the edge of a cliff, looking out at the ocean and pining for either his freedom or a pair of inexcusably tight pants. Not really sure which is the case. As he looks down, Van Damme sees that the surrounding ocean is being guarded by an underwater laser grid system. Belloq joins JCVD and tells him that no one has ever escaped the island. Beyond the technical barriers like the thumbprint sign in and the laser grid system in the water, everyone is assigned a secret guardian whom watches over their assignee and makes sure that they don’t escape. It’s kind of like your office’s Secret Santa system, if Santa only delivered painful and merciless death.

The movie then turns to JCVD’s wife, who is sitting and staring out into the rain, hoping that even though she believes him to be dead, her ballerina will somehow come home. She gets a phone call and we discover that she’s been commissioned for an art exhibit, which we later discover has been set up by none other than Mickey Rourke. We can only imagine that he’s keeping her close so that Mickey can rape her mouth in the same way that he wished he could have with JCVD when he had the chance.

The movie turns back to the island and we see that a cargo plane is flying into view, which gives JCVD the first inklings of his master plan of escape. The plane flies in and dumps a bundle of supplies into the ocean near the island. The laser grid is turned off just before the cargo hits the water and a team of people are there to pull the delivery up onto a raft right away. A similar load is also prepared and left on another raft to be taken away, so the plane loops back around and picks it up using the same “sky hook” technique that Batman used to capture the Chinese accountant in The Dark Knight, where a hook on a cable snatches up the cargo as it flies by. There are two questions that I have in seeing this process. First, who is just working on that island? If it’s so top-secret that its residents can never leave, how the hell did you manage to convince people to come work here? Second, what exactly are they leaving for the plane to take away? Is that just garbage? Is there no other way to get rid of it? Or are they producing something on that island? I’d like to think that’s the case and that when the residents aren’t analyzing terrorist data, they’re busy assembling McHappy Meal toys.

Get used to it. This is just one of many, many times you're going to see his balls.

Seeing his window of opportunity, JCVD is inspired and begins a rigorous routine. He begins marking his calendar, monitoring his progress as he tries to bring his body back into fighting/dancing shape. And how does he do that? By doing the splits, naturally. But in order to make it look legitimate, he’s doing the splits by putting one leg up a door frame and leaning into it. And much like Gymkata and almost every other JCVD movie ever created, we get a sweet taint shot as he’s wearing shorts that are just a little too damn short. But it’s not just his crotch that needs to be finely tuned. We see JCVD lying in the bath tub, using a lit cigarette as a timer as he tries to hold his breath under water for longer and longer.

This montage of sweetness is interrupted by another scene where the group is analyzing another terrorist act. As they all sit in their circle, watching incoming footage, JCVD deciphers a code that has been left for him. It consists of graffiti that’s been left on a wall that says, “I have your butterfly”. Because JCVD’s wife has a butterfly tattoo, he knows exactly what this means and who has left it for him. But instead of telling anyone else, JCVD says that this is not work of Rourke, but a copycat. Jean Claude knows the ante has been upped now, so it’s time for….MORE TRAINING!

JCVD kicks his routine into high gear, with deeper and deeper splits. He uses his bed sheet tied to a bucket of rocks as a pulley to exercise his legs, and then begins to kick the bucket as hard as he can until it explodes and sends rocks everywhere. That just seems like it’s inviting anyone with half a brain to investigate what the hell he’s doing. He might as well be wearing a t-shirt that says, “Ask me about my complicated escape plan.” But then the scene turns to something even better. Once again JCVD uses his bed sheet, but this time he’s got it tied to the front of his bathtub as he loops it over his neck and shoulders and begins to lift it off the floor. The ridiculous hip thrusts and the expression on his face make it look like he’s having sex with that bath, which is only amplified as he slowly raises his arms and puts his hands behind his head, using nothing but sheer crotch power. This is singlehandedly the most ridiculous, yet sexiest exercise I’ve ever seen in any movie.

Fuck the runner's high, I'm switching to the JCVD exercise regiment.

Preparations continue as the movie shows JCVD taking an exacto knife and cutting off a layer of skin from his thumb, which he will use with an elaborate system reminiscent of the breakfast machine in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure that will go through a series of motions before ending with an eraser touching JCVD’s severed thumbprint to the scanner. I’m sure that like me, you’re asking how the hell he managed to get his hands on an exacto knife in the first place. And since no answer is forthcoming, let’s just say that he made one out of soap, discarded fishing lures, and intestinal cramping. Finally, everything is in place.

Calling it a grid might be a little generous. It's more like a laser clusterfuck.

As the cargo plane once again approaches the island, we see JCVD standing on the edge of the cliff, waiting. Back in his room, the elaborate system that he set up works its magic and hits the fingerprint scanner, successfully telling the security system that he has checked into his room. As the cargo is being dropped, JCVD dives from the cliff and touches down just after the laser grid is deactivated. As Van Damme begins to swim underwater toward the raft where the load is waiting to be taken away, he is suddenly attacked from behind. It’s his old BFF in a scuba suit, trying to grab JCVD from behind and get his revenge. But the Muscles from Brussels will have none of it. He tosses a series of punches and kicks, which anyone who’s ever tried to do anything underwater could tell you shouldn’t move fast enough to hurt a geriatric fly on life support, that results in his attacker losing his breathing aparatus and being pushed back. Van Damme then swims on and comes up underneath the raft, just as the workers have finished preparing the load to be picked up. Seeing the plane is only seconds away, JCVD’s hand punches through the bottom of the raft and latches onto the bundle, just before it’s snatched away by the plane. He and the cargo package soar off into the air to freedom. Back in the water, we see that JCVD’s BFF has finally got himself composed, just in time for the laser grid to come back on and cause him to explode. Damn. So wait a minute…let’s review that. That guy was wearing a scuba suit, therefore he must have known ahead of time that JCVD had planned on escaping. Why didn’t he stop him before he made it into the water? And what did he plan on doing if he had actually managed to round up JCVD underwater? No matter what he had done, there was no way that he could have got them both out of the water in time to escape the laser grid. So was he intending that they both die?

Anyways, we return to the movie and see JCVD holding onto the dangling cargo netting as the plane slowly pulls the load into its rear door. As the cargo finally makes it all the way in and the first member of the flight crew comes to check things out, he’s surprised by JCVD, who has the courtesy to ask him if he has a parachute before he kicks the dude out the open bay. JCVD then leaps to his feet and runs to meet the other two crew members in the bay, attacking the first one with a sliding leg attack that the man should have seen coming three weeks in advance. But quickly those two men are also tossed out the back of the plane, as Van Damme takes a gun and manages to get into the cockpit, where he successfully completes the hijacking. And just as he soars away into the horizon, the movie turns back to the island where Belloq enters JCVD’s room and discovers that he’s escaped. Curses.

We travel back to Antwerp’s red light district next, where Dennis Rodman is outside his S&M nightclub/weapons lair, getting onto a motorcycle in an outfit that would make Liberace blush. Just as he’s about to pull away, we see the bike’s back tire lift, keeping him from going anywhere. Dennis turns and sees that JCVD is holding up the back of his bike with surprising ease. I don’t think this movie realizes how heavy a motorcycle, especially one with a very large man on it, really is. There’s no way that JCVD is lifting that thing. After a brief and pointless struggle, Dennis Rodman lets JCVD back into his cache and loads him up with guns, before he has the common sense to ask for payment and discover that JCVD isn’t carrying any money. Van Damme promises that he’s got access to three CIA accounts, which he will hand over to Dennis in payment. Rodman again shows that he’s nothing like an actual arms dealer and agrees. Pushing his luck, JCVD then also asks for help in getting back home, which once again Rodman agrees to. Goddamn, this is just neighborly. I hope Rodman offers to do his taxes next.

So hitting the ground at full speed in an inflated ball is supposed to save them how, exactly?

In the next scene, JCVD and Dennis are in a plane, getting ready to jump out. They eventually dive and come together in the air, where JCVD pulls a chord on Dennis’s suit. This causes them to be encompassed by a goddamn inflated ball, which is naturally painted to look like a basketball and protects them as they hit the ground. That is so unforgivably stupid that I’m surprised they didn’t go through a goddamn hoop first and have Rodman yell something about making a three pointer.

Now that he’s back on land, JCVD continues on to his house, where he sees a woman with what appears to be a baby inside. It’s clearly not his wife, but could it be a nanny taking care of his young child? No. JCVD sneaks around the back and enters his home, slowly making his way up to the crib just as the strange woman walks away from it. He peeks in and sees that instead of a baby, there’s a bomb inside that’s only got two seconds left on it. He turns and leaps away, probably getting only about two feet away, just as a massive explosion goes off. But rather than incinerating him as basic human intelligence dictates would be the case, instead He somehow comes rocketing out of the house along with the flames. He then jumps over a van that is racing onto the scene, when it crashes into the house causing yet another explosion and we get a sweet camera shot where he’s diving away from the massive fireball behind him. Just as random henchmen start coming to investigate, he somehow manages to twist himself around in midair and land on his back on an inflatable raft in his pool, where he immediately starts shooting the henchmen with unmatched accuracy. Once he has them dealt with, JCVD climbs out of the pool and turns to see the woman who was dressed as the nanny as she stumbles around the flaming rubble that was his house with a gun. Considering she had just walked away when he discovered the bomb, she couldn’t have been more than ten feet away either when it went off, so it’s just as fucking stupid that she’s still alive, but at least she has the common courtesy to look like hell. JCVD looks over at her, then decides to turn his back to her for some reason that only him, Jesus, and Gino Vanelli knows. She begins to shoot at him, which is apparently much to his surprise, before he returns fire while she commits her dying act of lobbing a grenade in his direction. It lands in the pool beside him, he gets an extremely constipated look on his face, and once again we get an awesome shot of him diving through the air as a massive explosion goes off behind him. Of course, I wouldn’t think a grenade that’s completely submerged in a pool could create an explosion considering it’s surrounded by water with no flammable substance to be found anywhere. But apparently, I’m an idiot.

Why did I fill my pool with diesel?! ARRGGGGH!!!

That scene of true excellence comes to a close as JCVD stumbles away from his house and discovers a car that one of the henchmen must have been driving a short ways down the road. Inside it’s playing a message from Mickey Rourke on repeat, which is telling JCVD that he has his wife and that the baby’s due tomorrow while a postcard on the windshield shows him where to go. Insidious. As JCVD stops to digest this information and consider cleaning the sourfudge loaf out of his underwear, Dennis Rodman emerges from the darkness just in time to smack down the last remaining henchmen with a combination of karate chops and love. JCVD turns to Rodman and explains that he needs to get to Rome immediately. Rodman grins like he just cut a fart and tells him not to worry, he’ll take care of the transportation.

The movie takes a moment away from cancer inducing action to deliver some spine-jarring comedy in the next scene, which shows Rodman in a tight, ridiculous orange hood, stealing a car that looks to be smaller than an Austin Mini. As he goes to drive away, he cracks open its sunroof and sticks his head out the top…get this…because he’s too tall for the car! HILARITY ABOUNDS!

After a quick scene with Belloq that shows that he clearly knows where JCVD is going, as the entire colony is keeping tabs on him somehow, the movie proceeds to the hotel in Rome that Rourke told JCVD to travel to. Rodman walks in and collects a package that has been left for Van Damme with the front desk attendant before he takes it outside to a café where JCVD is sipping on a coffee. After a poorly acted exchange, JCVD admits to Rodman that the three accounts that he had promised him were CIA fronts that had no money in them. Rodman demands to know why JCVD’s been lying to him, at which point JCVD reveals the contents of the package that Rodman had picked up at the hotel: a sonogram of his unborn child. Rather than being horrified, the arms dealer with the heart of gold instead agrees to join JCVD and stop Rourke. But as inspiring as this is, it’s immediately destroyed by another goddamn basketball reference.

Rodman: “It’s time to get off the bench.”

JCVD: “The best defense is a good offense.”

WHAT?! That doesn’t even make sense. But they top it off with a ridiculous signature handshake: a fist bump followed by a quarter turn of the wrist, just to lock into place. The only way that could be dumber is if they showed the discussion where the two of them decided on that, followed by the couple of practice tries that would be required to do that routine.

Hence begins the world's worst porno.

The movie then turns to them planning their attack, while talking to each other with their faces so close together that they only way it could be described as appropriate was if they were going to start making out at any moment. Their plan consists of JCVD sending a fake message back to The Colony telling them where Rourke will be and suggesting that they act, which he knows will be intercepted by Mickey Rourke. How, I’m not sure. But moments later we see that Rourke has in fact caught wind of the message, just as anticipated.

Yo yo yo, my homies. What is up with it? Know where can I get my hands on some of the dope?

JCVD’s grand scheme soon comes to fruition, as we see a square with a whole shitload of things going on in it. There are vendors, a wedding, and a bunch of people just hanging out. And once again, showing as much subtlety as a coked up elephant in china shop, there are various government agents standing around everywhere making very poor attempts to look like they’re undercover. Dennis Rodman strides into view and crosses over to meet the greatest spectacle in the scene, however; JCVD in a ridiculous wig, trying to look like a punk. Goddamn, that looks glorious. If that doesn’t scream NARC, I don’t know what does. They sit and wait, looking around at the spectacle before them when JCVD notices that there’s a car waiting at a traffic light nearby with his wife sitting in the back seat. He runs for it, screaming her name as it takes off. Trying to give chase, JCVD eventually comes face to face with Rourke, where another unintelligible conversation ensues. But seeing JCVD and Rourke standing together causes all the government agents to jump into action, and once again everyone starts shooting at everyone else with no discernable goal in mind. And once again, like the carnival sting earlier in the film, I have no idea what’s going on.

Eventually JCVD ends up running off towards a building after a sniper that had been set up on one of the roofs. I’m not sure why he’s picked this person to target, but whatever. Dennis Rodman is also in pursuit, and you know that means it’s time for more basketball bullshit. He grabs a dude standing on the opposite side of a car from him, brings him over the hood and tosses him into the window of a passing bus, yelling, “he’s up, he’s in”. Fuck you, Dennis. With that done, we turn back to Van Damme who has followed the sniper back to the door of the hotel room where, unbeknownst to him, they had been keeping his wife a short time ago. A very unremarkable fight scene ensues, as Jean Claude disposes of the sniper and another random Asian dude that kicks his shoes at JCVD and then proceeds to attack him with a switchblade that he holds between his toes. I’m not sure, but I think watching this scene just caused my sperm count to drop. But before it ends, JCVD looks around the room and finds a sticker with his wife’s name on it stuck to a mirror.

We are treated to a quick scene where Rourke has taken JCVD’s wife to a church hospital to give birth, while warning his hechmen to be on the lookout for Van Dammes before the movie returns to our heroes as JCVD knocks on the door of a monastery and is greeted by a friar. The monk beacons Van Damme inside and takes him down to the basement of the church, which is a room full of computer equipment and a large group of monks who are hanging out with Dennis Rodman. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that this room might be the source of ninety five percent of the kiddie porn on the Internet. But these future guests of To Catch A Predator are apparently allies of Rodman’s, as Dennis supplied them with all their hi-tech gear. The monks start running a trace on the sticker that JCVD found, which is apparently the label off of a prescription. If these elderly men are like most I’ve met in my time, they’re search will consist of opening a SPAM email they received promising them discounts prescriptions on Viagra before they get a virus and their entire system is shut down. But before they can acquire anything useful on their own, they suddenly received a bunch of data that’s being sent to the by The Colony, telling them of Rourke’s exact location and where he’s keeping JCVD’s wife. How the fuck do they know that? And how the fuck did they instantaneously hack into this system to relay that information? But rather than question how retarded this whole thing is, JCVD just sends them back a message saying thanks for their blessing.

High five for pictures of naked children! YEAH!

JCVD and Rodman then make their way through secret underground tunnels as they travel to the hospital where Rourke is keeping Van Damme’s wife. This is exactly what a shitty movie needs. More goddamn tunnels. If they exit out of a goddamn culvert, we’re turning this movie off right now. Thankfully that’s not the case as they finally reach a grate that they must exit out of, which Dennis Rodman immediately begins to wire with explosives that he just happens to be carrying on him. The bomb has a wire on it, but it’s too short for them to detonate the explosive from a safe distance, so the two of them stand back as Rodman tries throwing random skulls that are at their feet in an attempt to somehow set the bomb off by hitting the wire. His first toss misses, so it’s time for another shitty basketball reference:

Rodman: “Airball!”

JCVD: “You need more practice.”

Rodman: “I never miss twice.”

Seriously, cut that shit out. Even atheists would agree that every time you make a ridiculous basketball reference, God kills a puppy with a sledgehammer. But with that bit of genius dropped on the world, Rodman hits the wire on his second toss which causes the desired explosion. Finally they make their way out into the city and continue on.

The movie turns briefly to JCVD’s wife, as she has finished giving birth to her child. Rourke tells one of his men to wait a few minutes and then kill the wife and doctor. Unsurprisingly, moments later that man finds a way to fail to do both.

Meanwhile, JCVD and Rodman finally make their way into the hospital/ancient ruins. JCVD heads up to find his wife while Rodman takes on a group of random guys while spouting exceptionally unfunny lines about being quiet in a hospital. JCVD finally finds his wife and her doctor, who are inexplicably still hanging out in the same room even after an attempt had been made on their lives only moments earlier. But the reunion is quickly spoiled, as Van Damme realizes that Rourke has made off with his son. Just then, Rodman rejoins him and tells him to go after Rourke and leave the women to him. JCVD agrees, figuring that Rodman wears enough make up that he’s definitely safe to leave his wife with, and runs off, beginning one of the most epic final battles known to man.

JCVD wanders into the middle of an ancient, open coliseum where Mickey Rourke is waiting for him. He has JCVD’s son in a bassinette and, naturally, he’s standing there with no shirt on. Because we all know that if you’re going to have a final showdown, you have to play shirts versus skins.

Why am I glistening like this? One word, mister: Filth.

But just then, Rourke reveals one final mini-boss that JCVD will have to face before they can begin their dance of death, as a tiger suddenly comes loping into the arena. And like all final battles, Rourke has also added one last infuriatingly unnecessary obstacle, pointing out that there are many small crosses all over the dirt floor of the coliseum, all of which are marking the location of landmines. The tiger strolls up to the baby in the bassinette, as it sits between it and JCVD. In a desperate and yet supreme showcase of power, JCVD races up, kicks the tiger and sends it skidding away.

The CG of this tiger skidding away from the kick is so good that I'm surprised they didn't use a cardboard cut out.

But just as all seems lost, Dennis Rodman comes ripping into the arena on a motorbike which he apparently produced from his lower intestine, as I can’t think of any other place that he could have been hiding it. Rodman tears past JCVD and snatches away the child, somehow managing to avoid all the landmines that he shouldn’t know are there. And to add insult to injury, he then proceeds to rip around the arena for no discernable reason, rather than just leave straight away. And yet he still manages to not hit any of the mines. Eventually he leaves and we see him traveling down a nearby corridor, where he sees a sizeable hole in a wall near the floor. And even though there’s a goddamn tiger roaming around on the loose that could easily find and access this area, Dennis decides that this is a great place to stash the kid so that he can go back and kick some ass. Brilliant. Don’t forget to smear the kid with barbeque sauce before you leave, professor.

Shhhh! Now stay quiet and try not to look so delicious!

Back in the arena, JCVD is squaring off once again with the tiger. But realizing that doing the splits and trying to punch it in the dong will probably be futile, he wisely decides that the better course of action is to run like hell. He darts out of the arena and down a hallway where he comes to a rickety wood structure that couldn’t pass for a bridge in the most desolate areas of Mongolia, where he kicks a beam that causes the whole thing to collapse, dropping the pursuing tiger down to another level where a random henchman that’s trying to shoot Van Damme serves as a convenient meal. Just then, Rodman joins back up with JCVD again and advises this time that they bail, as the whole place is going to explode soon. From what, exactly? You know what, nevermind. JCVD tells him to take care of his son, as he’s going to go end things once and for all with Rourke.

Agreed: the loser of this fight has his career tank slightly harder than the winner.

So once again, Van Damme strolls into the coliseum and battle finally begins. As one would imagine, several minutes of extremely generic martial arts fighting ensues, which takes them out into and adjoining hallway before making their way back into the arena. And as this is going on, Belloq finally arrives on site, hopefully to once again act as the vehicle for the scorching vengeance of a petty and spiteful god and melt all these useless shits. Rodman runs across the arena to get a piece of the action, only to immediately step on a landmine, making the fact that he managed to avoid them earlier all the more insulting. But before a hilarious “oops” scene that results in a janitor having to gather up chunks of skull with badly dyed hair on it can take place, Rodman finds a way to reset the pin in the landmine and saves himself. Meanwhile, our two main characters separate from grappling for a moment, when JCVD puts his foot down right next to one of the crosses marking the location of a mine, and Rourke snickers at his bad luck. But Van Damme moves his foot, showing that the assumed landmine is not there. Just then, Rourke himself puts his foot down in a place that is not marked by a cross and hears the telltale click of doom. Rodman then pipes up, telling Rourke that he swapped the location of a bunch of his crosses. WHAT? Isn’t it fairly retarded to move the crosses around, leaving unmarked landmines all over the place? JCVD could have just as easily stepped on that, or even Rodman himself (since I doubt he’d remember where they all were). How is turning an already difficult obstacle into a random one a better move? But regardless, our two heroes enjoy a moment of self-satisfaction about leading Rourke into his inevitable doom. Well, it’s inevitable unless you count the fact that Rodman himself just managed to replace the pin and step off of a mine. If you look at it that way, then they’ve left him with a minor inconvenience at best. But Rourke would have to act fast, as just then the tiger strolls back into the arena. Rodman and JCVD run to safety, leaving the tiger looking over at Rourke and seeing its next greasy, chlamydia-ridden meal.

As they dash down a hallway, JCVD and Rodman return to where the child was left, finding it in the waiting arms of Belloq. At the same time back in the arena, the tiger makes its lunge at Rourke just as he lifts his foot off the mine, and they both go up in a blaze of shame. This of course causes all of the other landmines to explode, resulting in a massive inferno that comes roaring down the hallway after JCVD, Rodman, and Belloq as they try to run to safety. Before going on, I’d just like to point out the fact that all of the landmines exploding just because one went off is certifiably insane. Minefields in the real world wouldn’t be much of a threat if they did that. One unlucky bastard would step on one, the whole bunch of them would go up in flames, and the area would be clear. The whole point of landmines is that you have to make your way through a whole FIELD of them, hence the term MINEFIELD. But anyways, as we turn back to our heroes, we see that they are clearly not able to outrun speeding flames, so they instead duck behind a Coke vending machine, which is one of a group of them that is conveniently placed along that hallway. Those might not seem so grossly out of place if there had been so much as one other modern device seen anywhere in this complex in any other scene, but these are the first. So why the hell are those there? And as they duck behind this Coke-laden change-guzzling savior, the flames of the explosion scream past them as they are fully engulfed and yet totally untouched. A few seconds later, the fire is gone and they are left standing there, laughing and strangely craving a Pepsi.

Two hours later, a cop arrives and wonders why the Coke he just bought burns the shit out of his tongue.

I want a lock of your hair, your shirt, and for you to spank me while calling me Molly.

Finally safe, JCVD takes a moment to look at his new son as he moves to get into their getaway car. But before he can climb in, he turns to see Belloq standing a few feet away pointing a gun at him. DAMN! Belloq asks for a souvenir, consisting of, no shit, JCVD’s shirt and a piece of his hair. An awkward moment passes while JCVD tries to digest this bizarre autograph request, which is broken by Rodman pulling out a coin and tossing it into the air. As it hits the ground, it explodes into a plume of smoke and JCVD uses the distraction to dive into the car and tear off to safety. As Rodman and Belloq stand waiting for the smoke to clear, Belloq starts laughing like a lunatic at what just transpired and they both join in the giggling insanity. After a truly baffling farewell, Belloq takes off in his own car, leaving the black man to take the rap with the police. And that’s it. THAT’S where the movie ends. And really, why not?

The Verdict:

Donkey: With an outstanding career like Van Damme’s, it’s really hard to pick a true champion, one film to rule them all. After all, we’ve already discussed the brilliance of Street Fighter: The Movie, nevermind the dozen other contenders to come. But Double Team makes a strong case for the title. After all, the perfect way to counter the awesomeness of Van Damme is with the boldly insane combination of Mickey Rourke and Dennis Rodman. Then further destroy things by making Van Damme perform ridiculous exercises that will be burned into the brains of your viewers for the rest of their lives. Then flush it all away with an ending where your heroes are saved by a Coke machine. A fucking COKE MACHINE. This one’s a no-brainer. I give it five shameful basketball references out of five.

What We Learned:

Donkey: Duck and cover is most certainly bullshit, but standing behind a Coke machine can save you from any and all infernos. Remember that when the bombs fall, people.

Don’t forget to check back every Thursday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: Comic book movies reach a new low in both movie and character quality as we examine…CAPTAIN AMERICA.

Back To The Main Page.

The reason this cover is hand drawn is because Kurt Thomas never actually kicks anyone in the face. He just awkwardly flips on top of them and they pass out from embarrassment.

Donkey: There are moments in every person’s life that when looking back upon them, we realize that they have changed the way that we look at the world. Where existential lines in the sand have been crossed, from which there is no turning back. Take a quick moment now to reflect and examine any of those events that may have happened in your life. Perhaps it was the birth of your first child, the first time you took another human life, or when you first discovered that ultimate masturbation technique that had you shut away in your room for days on end, spanking it like it would eventually produce the cure for cancer. Can you think of yours? Good. Now kick whatever bullshit example you managed to come up with to the curb, because there is only one truly significant moment that can be used to categorize your very existence into one of two groups: those who have never seen Gymkata and those who have. Heed this warning now: those who are faint of heart should close their web browser now and go back to their merry little lives, where the world makes sense. For once you go further, nothing will ever be the same again. Still here? Good. Now that all the pussies are gone, let’s get back to business.

We first came across Gymkata after Milobar found it in a Top 10 list, the topic of which was the coolest conceptual movie fighting styles that couldn’t possibly be feasible in real life. Natural curiosity led him to look up the trailer for Gymkata on YouTube, and the spectacle that he bore witness to naturally led him to share it with us. It quickly became a top priority in our viewing rotation, and a copy of the film down was soon tracked down. The stage was set. Looking back now at those men that it seems almost impossible to believe that we had been with the innocent virgin brains that we carried into the film, I only wish that we had been wearing diapers. That would have made it much easier to manage the shit that the next ninety minutes of our lives was going to kick out of us.

The Plot:

Donkey: Gymkata is a true period piece, bordering on documentary film, examining the state of the world at the tail end of the Cold War. The year was 1985 and the US was charging full steam ahead with a bloated, all-but-technically-impossible missile defense program called Star Wars. The centerpiece of this bureaucratic waste was going to be a satellite monitoring station which could only exist if it was set up in a small, fictional country called…Parmistan? Or Permistank? No, Parmesanistan. Fuck, good enough. But this drunken, syphilitic orgy of a plan had run into one small hitch: no outsider was allowed into the country of Parmesanistan without first playing THE GAME, the ultimate test of endurance, sanity, and colon capacity. And to make matters worse, no one had actually managed to win THE GAME in over nine hundred years. And while direct military intervention seemed to be the most logical step, the US government had a better plan:

The Man: Kurt Thomas, former Olympic gymnast and sexual deviant.
The Mission: To infiltrate Parmesanistan and be the first person in nine hundred years to win THE GAME.
His Training: Two solid months, with a mild focus on martial arts and a heavy concentration on unnecessary posture and poise.
His Adversaries: Commander Zamir, fellow contestants from competing countries, the very fabric of reality upon which the universe is based.

It was a mission so brilliant that it couldn’t possibly fail. And with the weight of the free world on his dainty, midget-like shoulders, Kurt Thomas was ready to forge ahead and deliver an unnecessarily acrobatic knock out punch.

The Case for Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Donkey: Behold, Gymkata…one of the crown jewels of the Shitty Movie Night experience. To anyone out there reading this, I can’t recommend this movie highly enough. But if I’m successfully in lobbying for the passage of Bill C-434, then my word won’t matter as you’ll soon be mandated to watch it in teased hair and legwarmers for the true retro experience.

Milobar: I honestly believe this is the greatest shitty movie of all time. For all the readers who think Troll 2 should claim that title: fuck you, we’ve seen that movie and it’s got nothing on Gymkata.

Donkey: The movie starts with Kurt Thomas doing an uneven parallel bar routine in the dark. The movie tries to make this otherwise tedious event reassuringly dramatic with the sound of Kurt’s heart pounding as he takes to the pole, so to speak. And something tells me that Kurt is exceptionally comfortable with taking pole.

Milobar: You know, it’s really depressing that some people think this is cool. This is what Kurty Thomas has dedicated his life to; spinning around a pole. Awesome.

Donkey: Hey, this is awesome. It’s the majesty of sport combined with mastering control of one’s body, mixed with the grace of…yeah, fuck it. I couldn’t give a shit less either. The movie switches its focus between Kurt’s routine and events that are presumably happening at the same time. We’re introduced to the badass of all badasses, Commander Zamir, chasing down whom we will later discover is Kurt Thomas’ father.

Milobar: I don’t know about you, but from here on I am going to refer to Zamir as CheeseSteak Jefferson.

Donkey: Let it be done.

Milobar: And his band of merry ninjas.

Everyone be quiet! I'm trying to aim!

Donkey: Old Man Thomas, who is wearing some outstanding green jogging pants, reaches a ravine with a series of ropes stretching across it. With CheeseSteak Jefferson in pursuit, he wastes no time in jumping out and attempting to scramble across one of the ropes.

Milobar: CheeseSteak Jefferson, magically appearing in front of the old coot on the other side of the chasm, lines up and lets fly with an arrow from about four feet away.

Donkey: Old Man Thomas screams in agony and falls. And with his dramatic demise, the movie turns back to watching Kurt Thomas continue his routine in the dark. I’ve never seen a gymnastic routine done in the dark before, and that seems like an inherently flawed premise to me. But before we can contemplate what the fuck that is all about, Kurt mercifully dismounts.

Milobar: Freeze frame: Kurt Thomas! And we discover that he was doing his routine in some random high school gymnasium.

Donkey: He runs down beside what are clearly high school bleachers, where he’s surrounded by all of twenty fans. What a superstar! But before this adoring crowd can demand too many autographs or sexual favors, Kurt is led away by a government agent named Paley, who was waiting patiently for him.

Above: Kurty Thomas and all 18 people who actually care about gymnastics.

Moments later we see Kurt at a mountain hideout, being briefed by Paley on what is to be the premise of the entire film. The scene and the conversation starts exactly like this:

Kurt: “I remember all the hours dad and I spent out there.”

Paley: “Did you like it?”

Kurt: “Sure.”

Paley: “Good, because for the next two months you’re going to toughen your mind and your body. It’s going to make your Olympic training look like finger painting. Those men among others out there will train you. Any Questions?”

Kurt: “None.”

Milobar: Actually, I’m pretty sure his Olympic training makes his Olympic training look like finger painting. You have no questions? Well I have a lot of goddamn questions, asshole. Primarily: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Donkey: Paley then shows Kurt a picture of a man known as the Kahn, the King of Parmesanistan and asks him if he knows who he is. Kurt explains that he’s indeed the Kahn, King of Parmesanistan, a tiny nation in the Hindu-Kush range.

Milobar: Why the fuck would Kurt know any of that?

Donkey: Apparently gymnasts with shitty mullets are extremely well versed in the global socio-political landscape. Next, Kurt acknowledges that he doesn’t recognize CheeseSteak Jefferson when shown a picture of him, so Paley explains that he’s the leader of the Kahn’s army and that he “intends to sell the country to the other side.” What other side? What the fuck are you two talking about?

Milobar: Paley goes on to explain that they want a Star Wars satellite station inside Parmesanistan so that they can monitor every other satellite in the world. That doesn’t even come close to making sense. Do you understand how satellites fucking work? THEY’RE IN SPACE!

Donkey: I think it’s pretty clear that Parmesanistan occupies the exact center of space and time.

Milobar: And there’s also no way to get into Permesanistan except to play…THE GAME. What game? Rumoli?

Donkey: I’m actually hoping it’s Tetherball, so that we can watch this midget squirm. But it gets more complicated, as no outsider has won THE GAME in over nine hundred years. And the glorious reward for winning THE GAME is twofold: your life, and having one request granted. That’s pretty fucking stupid. What if that one request is to rule Permesanistan? Or to be given trillions of dollars, which is more than any small nation like this could possibly have in the 80′s?

Milobar: I think my one request would be to punch Kurt Thomas in the face. Time to introduce a marginally attractive woman into the mix! Enter the Princess of Parmesanistan: Karamabala, or something. Despite the fact that no outsider has been inside Parmesanistan for nine hundred years, somehow they got her out of the country. How did they contact her? This movie is very quickly going from semi-retard to full blown retard.

It's time to do the Santa Fe Shuffle!

Donkey: After a brief introduction, during which Pricess Rubali ties up Kurt quite gracelessly and gives him a pathetic karate chop to the back of the head, all to prove the point that he shouldn’t trust anyone, Kurt’s training officially begins. Bring on the montage! It starts with Kurt trying to walk up a flight of stairs while doing a handstand, only to fail on the second step. Then it moves right along to hand-to-hand combat with some black dude. That’s quite the segway.

Milobar: No man’s training is complete without a black dude in a poorly fitted sweat suit.

Donkey: That sweat suit is way too fucking tight. I should not be able to see his genital warts that easily. This black guy and an Asian man are Kurt’s two trainers, and he starts by giving Kurt a sound beating. Next it’s the Asian guy’s turn.

Milobar: The Asian dude is just sitting there with a hawk on his wrist. I love that fucking hawk.

Maybe it's those blue pills I took, but does anyone else notice the hawk on my wrist?

Donkey: There’s absolutely no reason why it should be there. This doesn’t come into play, it’s not discussed, and it’s not a plot point. He’s just sitting there with a hawk, babbling about how “the air has a lot to say to you” while Kurt chops wood. What the fuck kind of training is this? Next we see Kurt back in the black guy’s hands, running along behind while the black guy trots along on a horse.

Milobar: “You’ve gotta out quick ‘em!” What does “out quick ‘em” mean? Kurt replies with, “I know I’ll out sleep them!” Ha ha! This movie delivers a million laughs a minute!

Donkey: Shit, I’ll say. This movie is like a comedy vortex. When it means to be funny, it’s as terrible as cracking a five pound fart while giving a eulogy. When it means to be serious, it’s more hilarious than a clown getting caught in a woodchipper. It keeps spinning me around so quickly that I’m losing my bearings. Again we see Kurt trying to walk up the same set of stairs on his hands. Why do they keep coming back to this, like it’s in some way important or even impressive!? How is this an applicable skill? When are you going to ever use this?

Milobar: There’s a lot of upside down stairs in Parmesanistan. “Other countries are training their best men now to defeat you!” As we’ll learn later, by other countries Paley means Japan, because aside from the one Japanese dude everyone else playing THE GAME is an American.

Donkey: As Kurt dangles from a set of rope monkeybars, he pines over the princess while Paley is trying to discuss the task at hand. So Paley starts giving Kurt background information on her instead. Apparently her mother was Indonesian. What? How does that work? How the hell did her mother get into the country then, if no one can get in without playing THE GAME and no one has won THE GAME in nine hundred years?

With that little nugget of bafflement shared, it goes back to Kurt trying on the stairs again and this time he succeeds in making it all the way up. But goddamn is it difficult to watch. As he comes up the stairs and gets closer and closer to the camera…there it is. Nothing but taint.

Milobar: TAINT SHOT!

HHhhhnnGGHhhhhh!! MY EYES!

Donkey: Fuck, that’s just disgusting. Could it get any worse? Oh God, it did! As he passes the camera and continues up the stairs, he almost falls, causing his hips to drop in the camera’s direction before he rights himself, which creates a shot where we get to see his goddamn ballsack. FUCK. While I go spend the next ten minutes puking up marmalade and rubber bands, the movie switches to a tender moment between Kurt and the Princess, where Kurt sets his charm-phaser to ‘mind fuck’.

Milobar: Kurty tries to have a conversation with the Princess but she won’t talk to him. So he does this ridiculous back flip where he spins around in the air and then tries to imitate her very poorly, after which he does another back flip to continue the conversation as himself, and so on. He does this three or four more times, but it feels like seven or eight dozen.

Kurt Thomas: Professional Conversationalist.

Donkey: What asshole found this impressive? This is only accomplishing two things. First, those flips are going to make me cry. Seriously, that shit is creeping me right out. Second, when he’s standing facing away from the camera and pretending to be her talking, we get to see how shitty that little faux mullet of his truly is. This guy actually manages to look even dumber with his back turned than he does when he’s facing you.

Milobar: Those flips just make me want to punch him in the balls.

Donkey: I’d settle for kicking him out a ninth story window. Since the Princess has not responded to his flirtations in any way, Kurt decides to step up and kiss the Princess. Yeah, that seems like a good idea, you creepy little rapist. We all know that the next step after unreturned confusing flirtation is full out sexual assault. In the middle of the smooch, she pulls a switchblade. Unphased, he goes right back to sucking the life-force out of her via her esophagus and she doesn’t resist. Why is she letting him kiss her? Is she hoping that he’ll reveal the secret location of Santa’s Workshop, or the recipe for Tollhouse cookies? They have very literally known each other for under two months and not had one single conversation. And it’s not like this asshole is attractive enough that his looks could seal the deal by themselves.

Since his training is coming to an end, I’d just like to take a moment to reflect on one major theme that we’ve seen so far. This movie, like so many others, makes it seem like you can be a black belt in any martial art if you go through a semi-intense weekend seminar…and that’s about it. Come on, people. This takes years of dedication to master. What the fuck does anyone think he can actually learn in two months?

Milobar: Apparently not acting skills. Oh…uh..yeah…uh uh uh….yeah…uuuhhh…yeah.

Donkey: We get to hear fantastic, overly exaggerated sounds of pleasure as Kurty gets a back rub from the Princess. After grunting like a fucking baboon, he rolls over and takes the Princess into his bed so that she can play the ‘Seriously, it’s already in?’ game. Ewww…

Milobar: You know, she still hasn’t said anything, has she?

Donkey: Nope, not a word. And that’s what makes their relationship so special. Remember ladies, if you want to be considered attractive, keep your goddamn mouths shut. Oh, and baking. Lots of baking. Pies ain’t going to make their way into my mouth by themselves, you know.

Karabal, on the Caspian Sea.

Milobar: After the shame that is Kurty’s version of the horizontal mommy daddy dance, they show up in Karabal, on the Caspian Sea, to meet up with Mackle, their Middle Eastern contact. The only reason I even know any of that is because they say “Karabal, on the Caspian Sea” about fifty fucking times.

Donkey: He takes them to “the salt mine” that’s apparently acting as their base of operations, which appears to just be a warehouse full of salt with a couple of peasants running a rake through it. Sure, I guess a warehouse in the middle of a city is the same thing as a mine. Why not just call it a ski resort while we’re at it? Now that Mackle has them back at his parched fortress, he starts to discuss getting Kurt and the Princess into Parmesanistan and what that will entail.

Milobar: Since guns are outlawed in Parmesanistan they decide to outfit Dirty Kurty with a hatchet that can chop a steel bar in half… and a spring-loaded exacto blade shooter? This is the worst poor man’s version of of a “James Bond getting introduced to his new gadgets” scene I think I have ever witnessed. The best part about these dumb fucking gadgets? Never once are they seen or mentioned again in this movie.

Donkey: Since they’re told they have the night to themselves before leaving in the morning, Kurt ‘The Big Hurt’ Thomas and the Princess take to the local market, as Kurt sports one of the ugliest sweatshirts I’ve ever seen. Goddamn. His grandmother must have given him that as punishment for being an abject failure.

Milobar: What a great time. They’re running from vendor to vendor, looking at shitty knick knacks! This is my nightmare of a relationship. Just walking around and looking at shit that nobody wants or needs and discussing how great it would look on the mantle at home! Some random dude, who obviously agrees that this ridiculous garbage has gone on long enough, throws a drink on Kurty Thomas. Kurty, remembering that his karate should only be used for self defense, flies in to full testosterone induced KILLSHITFUCK until one of his guards stops him claiming, “there’s just some anti-American sentiment around here…HHHGGGNNN!!!”

Oh bother! Looks like I've been shot with an arrow. Don't worry this sort of thing happens all the time. I'll just run down to the shop for some bandages. Be back in a jiff!

Donkey: Suddenly that bodyguard gets shot in the chest with an arrow that comes from fucking nowhere. Kurt Thomas wastes no time, leaving the man to die and running down a side alley so that he can put his incredibly terrible gymnastic-karate skills to use as he leaps around for no reason whatsoever, throwing only a single attack per forty seven flips.

Milobar: These dudes he is fighting just fall over, even when he hasn’t hit them at all. And of course, after clumsily defeating these morons, he runs back to the market to find bodyguard number two hatcheted in the chest. The Princess and the two dozen street vendors? Nowhere to be found. He was gone for 30 seconds for fucks sake, where did all these assholes go?

Donkey: Kurt rushes back to the Mackle’s salty abode to report that he was attacked by…um…disgruntled curio vendors? Oh, and that the Princess has been kidnapped. Mackle spouts out something about CheeseSteak Jefferson exerting his power. I’m not even really sure what’s going on right now, let alone why.

Milobar: Obviously CheeseSteak Jefferson is a very powerful man that’s able to influence things from hundreds of miles away, but Kurt Thomas promises, “not for long…because I’m going to kill him”. I didn’t realize gymnasts could so easily shift gears from “spinning around on a bar” to “I’m going to kill someone” in 3 seconds flat.

Donkey: It’s apparently pretty easy to become a cocky killing machine. And in two months at that, baby.

Milobar: I don’t think Kurty really understands how hard it is to work up the nerve to kill someone.

Donkey: The movie transitions to the next day, where Kurt is still in that ridiculous goddamn sweatshirt and he’s trying to infiltrate the terrorist training camp where they’re supposedly holding the Princess.

Milobar: But of course, much like the greatest human fighter that has ever lived being defeated by a ladder, Kurty is defeated by a door.

Donkey: That’s right, once again a locked door has completely fucked up our hero. What is it with white guys recruited by the US government and doors? But I guess that’s the sign of a great movie. Unfortunately his ham-fisted efforts to infiltrate the safehouse don’t go unnoticed, as random henchmen start pouring out of the woodwork.

Milobar: And then he’s chased around by a bunch of middle-aged dudes in suits with bowler hats on. What?

Donkey: As he turns a corner, Kurt notices a metal bar several feet above his head, running across the alley from one wall to the other, so he jumps up and starts his uneven parallel bars routine.

Don't worry, I'll wait for you to swing around again.

Milobar: He’s just swinging around, over and over, until a dude comes around the corner and gets kicked in the face.

Donkey: These dudes continue to come around the corner one by one, only to be kicked in the face and knocked out. Even when he misses one of them, he just keeps spinning around and around on that bar until the guy eventually comes back to get the predictable kick in the face that a blind man could have seen coming. To lay one final chocolate banana on this shit sundae, some poor bastard on a bike comes around the corner and gets kicked in the piehole as well. They even draw specific attention to this, having Kurt stop and apologize, asking if the dude is okay. Wait, what the fuck was the point of him knocking out a random bystander? Why was it even in there? Is this a blooper reel outtake that someone forgot to take out?

Milobar: Kurt finally makes it into the terrorist training camp and runs into this one-eyed axe man who is oddly creepy for a movie that has been so comical up until this point.

Donkey: He gets half way up a stair case and with this dude just around the corner, Kurt stops to look behind himself dramatically for about fifteen seconds. Then he moves up the last five steps so that they can finally confront one another. What the fuck were you just looking back at?! THERE’S A DUDE WITH AN AXE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! Pay attention!

Despite what some movies' titles might lead you to believe, the Evil is actually in front of you.

Milobar: Why was one eye guy coming down the stairs so slowly? If I was that dude, I would have totally swung at Kurt while he wasn’t looking.

Donkey: Fuck yes. After a rather unremarkable action sequence, our gymnast protagonist manages to rescue the Princess and they escape the shitty building that they call a terrorist training camp. It doesn’t appear like they had much of a plan past that, though, because they spend the next ten minutes just running down random streets and alleys.

Milobar: There’s actually scenes where they end up running down the same alley but they’re shot from a different angle to make it look like a different location. But they’re not.

Donkey: And there’s no reason to keep this going for this long. Fuck, we get it.

Milobar: They’re just running with no dialogue, as there’s shitty music playing. And all they do is run, a dude shoots at them and misses, so they run down a different alley, another dude shoots at them and misses, over and over and over. Fuck, you can’t dodge machine gun fire like that forever. Eventually one of those bullets is going to catch up to you.

Donkey: Near the end of this painful sequence, random cops that just happen to show up and shoot one of the henchman in the back as he’s trying to fire on our heroes. But this henchman doesn’t just fall dead, as apparently they couldn’t afford stuntmen. Instead he slowly lowers himself to his knees, then slumps down while firing his rifle in the air. It’s more like an elderly uncle humoring young children while playing with them than it is like a man actually dying from being shot. That’s the worst example of pretending to die that I’ve ever seen.

Milobar: Finally they manage to make their way back to Mackle, only to discover that he’s betrayed them. But just as he’s about to eliminate Kurt and the Princess, Paley steps out of the darkness and guns Mackle down. Why the hell was Paley there?

Donkey: With absolutely no explanation as to why the hell Mackle betrayed them, the movie carries on to the next morning and the beginning of their long trek into Parmesanistan.

Milobar: First on mules, over the mountains. Seriously? You couldn’t at least air lift them to the border?

Donkey: Kurt ‘The Squirt’ Thomas riding a donkey really highlights the fact that this man has got to be about four feet tall. That donkey looks like a Clydesdale with him on its back.

Milobar: Kurt Thomas Riding A Donkey…yet another excellent name for a band. After the mules, we get a fucking whitewater rafting scene where they show a shot of the raft in the rapids from so far away that it’s impossible to make out who the two people in the raft are. Well, it’s almost impossible since the only thing that’s clear is that it’s definitely not the two of them.

Donkey: They intersperse the distant shots of the raft making its way through real rapids with close up shots of the two of them, trying to make you believe that Kurt and the Princess are actually in that river. But those shot are looking up from below waist level, so that you can see part of the raft, their torsos, and the sky above them, but not the kiddy pool that they’re actually sitting in.

Milobar: Not to mention the dude who’s lifting the raft up and down to simulate the rapids, and the other one throwing water at them. Once they make it to the shore, they’re greeted by the black robed ninjas of Parmesanistan. I love how in the 80′s, ninjas were the random thugs of any movie. They’re a dime of dozen.

Donkey: None of these movies seem to understand that real ninjas were assassins, not happy-go-lucky heroes or random thugs. These were ruthless, trained killers.

Milobar: It appears that these ninjas aren’t particularly happy to be escorting Kurty to THE GAME.

Donkey: Time for more tumble-fighting! Kurt runs into a group of them and begins another series of unnecessary and incredibly ineffective flips, jumps, and rolls.

Milobar: None of which has anything to do with fighting.

Donkey: Will Farrell’s floor routine in Old School is actually closer to martial arts than this. At one point Kurt Thomas literally sits down on his ass, two guys approach him from behind, and he does a splits kick over his shoulders to kick them both in the face at once. He then crab-walks over to another dude and kicks him in the face. This is ridiculous. Finally he gets clubbed from behind, only to wake up in a bed and find himself being nursed by an old hag with few teeth and no tongue. As Kurt seriously considers stuffing his penis into a festering pool of gingivitis, CheeseSteak enters the room to introduce himself. I’m Commander Zamir, but you can call me….CheeseSteak Jefferson. CheeseSteak informs us that he’s been sent to welcome Kurt to the country of Parmesanistan.

Milobar: I’ve been sent to welcome this movie to the bargain bin. Obviously using the same logic as every episode of star trek, everyone in Parmesanistan speaks fluent English.

Donkey: With no accent, at that. As CheeseSteak Jefferson goes to leave, Kurt lays back down in the bed and the tongue-less hag begins trying to caress him again. For a moment he looks like he’s going to object, but then just decides to lay back down while she looks like she’s about to give him a hummer.

Milobar: He didn’t really resist very much.

Donkey: You gotta toss that JimmyJuice somewhere, my man. Just close your eyes and think of Christmas.

Milobar: Hey, no tongue! ZING!

Donkey: Later the movie shows the Kahn, who of course is the father of Princess Rubali, as he shows Kurt and his fellow contestants the route that they’ll be taking during THE GAME using a small and poorly constructed model. I suspect the crew of this film had a little competition to see whose kid could make the most uninspired model possible using only their feet.

I'm pretty sure American Gladiators had tougher challenges than this.

Milobar: Now that he’s explained it, this just doesn’t seem like a very difficult competition: run through a field until you get to a cliff with some ropes, climb to the top, run until you get to a series of ropes over a ravine, climb across, run through another field until you get to the City of the Damned, pass through the city and that’s it. You’re done! Admittedly, the City of the Damned is pretty fucked up, but this is what no one else has ever been able to accomplish?

Donkey: It especially doesn’t seem hard enough to warrant the fact that no one has completed it in nine hundred years.

Milobar: Exactly. I could understand if CheeseSteak Jefferson was running around killing everyone all the time. But he ain’t nine hundred years old.

Donkey: As a warm up the day before THE GAME is supposed to begin, three convicts are given the option of running through the obstacle course to earn their freedom. And as Kurt and all the real contestants are hovering around starting line, watching the prisoners get ready for the Convict Dash to begin, Kurt asks one of his fellow runners if Thorg is going to make it for this thing. How the fuck does he know whom this Thorg guy is ahead of time?

Milobar: Who the hell is Thorg? Was a minor dose of background information not in the movie budget? Of course, none of that matters to the peasants gathered to cheer on THE GAME. The biggest thrill in their pathetic dirt hovel lives is watching these three convicts.

Donkey: It seems like it wouldn’t be that entertaining for them. They get to watch the contestants of THE GAME run out of the castle and then just trust it’s the truth when they’re told what happens later. It’s not like they’re all in a bar, gathering around a big screen television and watching the action for themselves on a closed circuit broadcast.

Milobar: They get reports back later that people have been killed and that’s it. For all they know it’s just three non-union extras wearing ridiculously obvious fake beards.

Donkey: It’s especially confusing once you remind yourself that no one has won this contest in nine hundred years. So not only do these people not get to see any of the action, but there isn’t exactly any mystery as to how it’s going to turn out either. There’s no suspense whatsoever. It’s not like no one has won it in five or ten years, or even a generation. No one was won it over multiple generations.

Milobar: It would be like buying a lottery ticket every week, when nobody has won for nine hundred years. “This week is the week! I can feel it in me bones!”

As they race through the course, one of the convicts lags behind only to have one of the black robed ninjas run up behind him and nonchalantly stab him with a spear. The remaining convicts make it to the cliff wall and begin to climb the ropes to the top. A black robed ninja suddenly opens fire and kills one of the convicts with an arrow, for which he, at CheeseSteak’s command, is immediately killed by another ninja. CheeseSteak Jefferson explains that this is because the first ninja broke the rules, attacking a player when he was considered to technically be on another field of battle. They are only allowed to attack players who are on the same field of battle. For that indiscretion and lack of respect for the rules, the second ninja had to be killed. That’s so goddamn dumb I don’t even want to think about it.

Donkey: The final convict, having successfully scaled the cliff, arrives at the ravine where he must climb across using another rope. The camera looks down and we see that it’s a steep drop of sheer rock face that comes to an end with a jagged rocks and raging river. As the contestant is making his way across, one of the black robed ninjas in CheeseSteak Jefferson’s troupe climbs out onto a rope himself and positions himself so that he can shoot arrows while hanging there. This sets up the greatest one-two punch of awesomeness the world has seen to date:

As you can probably imagine, the ninja hanging on the rope shoots and hits the convict. The arrow lands in the convict’s side, right in the rib cage. The convict shrieks and let’s go of his rope with one hand, so that he is only hanging onto the rope by the other hand. As he dangles there, however, his body slowly begins to rotate while the arrow stays in place. In other words, this is PAINFULLY obvious evidence that the arrow is attached to his shirt, and not actually puncturing his rib cage. But just as our laughter erupts, the convict matches the noise with a scream as he lets go of the rope, falling to his doom. And as the camera shot changes to one looking down at the ravine’s floor to bear witness to the convict’s demise, we see the body falling and slamming into the rocks. While that sounds all good in theory, the problem is that once again it is PAINFULLY obvious that the convict has been replaced with a dummy, as neither the posture while falling or the way that it impacts the ground looks like it could possibly be an actual human being. It couldn’t look any fucking dumber if they had decided to film a teddy bear falling instead.

Left: Gay. Middle: Gayer. Right: A metaphor for Kurt Thomas' career.

Milobar: As will become very important later, I would like to point out that there are no fucking trees in this ravine. Before THE GAME starts for the real contestants the next day, they need to throw a giant feast, complete with jesters, music, dudes sticking pins in their faces, and ninjas playing some kind of game that involves catching each other in nets. All the while, CheeseSteak Jefferson watches on, bare-chested. Are you sure we didn’t jump ahead to the part of the movie that takes place in Insano Town?

Donkey: Kurt has chosen to sulk in the corner of the long head table where all the contestants are seated, gazing over at the Princess like a pouting prepubescent girl looking for attention. Suddenly everyone applauds the arrival of the Kahn.

Milobar: As everyone retakes their seats, Kurty Thomas asks the Kahn if he knows what happened to Kurty Thomas Senior.

Donkey: The Kahn apologizes, but explains that his father was not victorious. No shit. Really? That seems pretty obvious, as otherwise they wouldn’t still be saying that it had been nine hundred years since they last had a winner.

Milobar: A few moments later, the Kahn announces that the Princess and CheeseSteak Jefferson are entering into an arranged marriage. Proving suddenly that the Princess is actually a dude because CheeseSteak is very obviously full blown gay.

Donkey: Meanwhile, Kurt Thomas is still sitting in the corner, desperately trying to get the Princess’s attention. That’s definitely the position you want to put yourself into just as you’re about to enter a competition where you are the prey: make sure that CheeseSteak Jefferson knows that you banged his wife-to-be. That’s some good thinking there, Kurty-Boy.

Milobar: Thorg, the man that Kurt had inquired about earlier, finally arrives to the applause of all. Kurty Thomas tries to get Thorg’s attention, telling Thorg that “I’ve admired you since Munich” while trying to shake hands, but is completely ignored. Which is pretty much exactly what I would do if this douche tried to talk to me on the street.

Donkey: What the fuck did this Thorg guy do in Munich? Seriously, who the hell is this guy?

Milobar: Kurt goes back to sulking in the corner, lifting a glass a wine to his mouth that he is very obviously not actually sipping from.

Donkey: Since Kurt’s jealousy is burning so brightly that you wonder if he’s about to super nova, CheeseSteak Jefferson finally takes notice. He gets up and removes his robe, pulling out a couple of Sias. He then goes into an elaborate kata, spinning them all around.

Milobar: To finish, he throws both of them at Kurty and they stab into the wall right beside him. Kurt doesn’t move at all. I’m guessing that his heart has finally stopped pumping blood to his brain in a desperate attempt to stop this train wreck of a movie.

Donkey: As much as it may sound impressive that he doesn’t flinch, he’s actually unable to move because it’s a freeze-frame shot of Kurt Thomas that those Sias stab into the wall next to. Fuck, that looked like a dickcheese sandwich.

Later, in the wee hours of the night while anyone competing in a major competition with the slightest bit of commonsense would be sleeping, Kurt takes his tongue-less hag servant hostage by putting a knife to her throat, and makes her take him to see the Princess.

Milobar: She takes him to the Princess’s quarters, where Kurt hands her the knife, assures her that he won’t hurt her, and asks her to tell the Princess to meet him in the garden. Why the fuck didn’t he just ask her that in the first place? What was the point of taking her hostage?

Donkey: And how the fuck is she going to tell the Princess to meet him in the garden WHEN SHE HAS NO FUCKING TONGUE? But regardless, once they’re in the garden together, the Princess explains to Kurt that her father, the Kahn, will announce his plans tomorrow after THE GAME to combine the best of the old world with the best of the new world and usher in a new age for Parmesanistan. But to stop this, CheeseSteak Jefferson “is going to make sure that THE GAME is so deadly that no one shall survive”. Hold the phone, sweetheart. Wasn’t that the point in the first place? No one has survived the game in nine hundred years, so why the hell would you think that was going to change tomorrow? Why would you possibly plan on that incredibly likely event not occurring?

Milobar: Just then the two of them are discovered and two rogue ninjas come to chase the Princess. Kurt comes flipping in from behind them and, even though he lands in a way that couldn’t possibly kick them, both ninjas fall down unconscious. This movie is a perfect example of how, in the 80′s, people thought that anyone who knew a martial art was Superman. Catch bullets, piss gasoline, or fart nuclear explosions. All in a days work for someone who spent two months being sexually molested by a couple of dudes that were supposed to be teaching him Karate.

Donkey: Yachmalla! It’s finally the race day, and all of our contestants line up in the town’s square along a rope that’s being held up by two robed ninjas.

Milobar: The Kahn keeps yelling yachmalla, which I’m pretty sure translates to “I’m going to fuck all of you in the ass!” As everyone is preparing to start, CheeseSteak Jefferson makes a very odd threat.

Mmmm...you smell just like your father's balls.

Donkey: He leans in and says to Kurty-Pants that the Princess was out last night, and that he knows somebody else was with her. Then he randomly says “death becomes you”. That’s it? Is that a threat, or a compliment?

Milobar: Who the fuck cares? I think this movie is almost over! Let THE GAME begin!

Donkey: The starting rope drops and all of the contestants begin their dash. After only a few feet, Thorg takes a moment to knock Kurt to the ground and kick him in the face. Thank you, Thorg. But seeing him running, I’m rather confused as to why everyone is treating Thorg like he’s the favorite contestant. He’s a pretty big guy, and while he looks strong enough, he doesn’t even look like he is capable of running down a supermarket snack aisle for the last bag of Cheetos without getting winded.

Milobar: As seen with the convicts the day before, the race starts with the contestants running through a cornfield, which is also supposed to be a swamp. Kurt stops in the middle for a while, probably to play with his own very special cornhole.

Donkey: I could have sworn that the last guy who took his time in here like this was killed almost immediately. This doesn’t look like a good start for Kurt. And as he’s taking his time, CheeseSteak Jefferson and the gang are all looking for him.

Milobar: How do they even know that they need to search in there?

Donkey: Why are they specifically looking for him? Last that I checked, this was a race with multiple contestants. Sure, I realize that CheeseSteak probably has a hard-on to kill Kurty first, but there’s no need to focus on that right away. There will be plenty of time to kill him. Kurt’s finally spotted, but dashes away in time and eventually catches up to the other contestants as they reach the first cliff wall and begin climbing up the ropes.

Milobar: He’s climbing using just his hands, keeping his legs spread out. That seems like unnecessary showing off, but I guess that’s no worse that doing back flips to simulate a conversation for no reason.

Guys? I just pooped a little.

Donkey: A fellow contestant just slightly further up the ropes than Kurt suddenly gets hit with two arrows and plummets to his death. On no! CheeseSteak’s not playing by the rules! But in the tradition of excellence in special effects that this movie is fast establishing, those arrows clearly struck a blatant and rather large pad that the contestant was wearing on his back.

Milobar: The ninjas decide their first attack didn’t work out very well, even though it did, and so they give up on shooting arrows and instead decide to light the rope that Kurt is climbing on fire. At least Kurt and the rope will finally having matching outfits: they’ll both be flaming. Of course, Kurt manages to get to the top before the fire catches up with him and, once again, CheeseSteak Jefferson is defeated.

Donkey: That was clearly a much better idea than shooting arrows. Much more effective. Why not just try to pee up at him and hope that he gets grossed out enough to fall?

Milobar: Fuck, you could have thrown bananas at Kurt while he was climbing and that would have been a better idea than lighting the rope on fire.

Donkey: Kurt gets to the top and, in frustration, turns to the random ninja that’s standing stationary with a flag to serve as a guide marker and yells that they broke the rules, demanding that this ninja kill them. Really? Did he honestly expect that to work?

Milobar: Kurt runs on and passes another contestant who is limping along. Of course moments later, the black ninjas catch up and toss a spear, eliminating yet another contestant. Thank your lucky stars that your part in this movie is over, dude.

Donkey: Moments later, the pack has reached the second obstacle: the ravine. Such great things have happened here already that I can barely wait to see what they come up with.

Milobar: As the first batch get across, one of the flag bearing ninjas that is waiting for them on the other end of the ropes decides to slice one of the contestants with a sword, sending another innocent stunt dummy to his death in the ravine.

Donkey: Why the hell did he decide to pick that guy off? Thorg and two other contestants just went past, and Kurt is still behind all of them. So it’s not like he was either going too fast or lagging too far behind. He was literally in the middle, so it was completely arbitrary.

If only someone would cut the other end of that rope.

Milobar: CheeseSteak Jefferson shows up as Kurt is trying to make his way across the ropes. He takes an unnecessarily large sword from one of his ninjas and cuts the rope that Kurt is climbing across. Slow Motion Ninja Chop!

Donkey: Of course, he decides to cut the rope when Kurt is almost all the way across, while they are standing back on the opposite side. So predictably, since they’ve cut the damn thing at the wrong end, Kurt just hangs onto the rope as he swings down about three feet to the ravine’s rock wall and then climbs his way up. As he gets to the top, the same ninja that killed the previous contestant attacks him, only to have Kurt neutralize him with a kick to the face. If this asshole was going to attack, why didn’t CheeseSteak Jefferson just get him to cut that the rope from that side? That would have made a lot more goddamn sense, as even if he hadn’t fallen, he still would have no way of getting back across without climbing up to the beginning and coming face to face with CheeseSteak and the Black Pajama Mafia. This is yet another pathetic attempt to kill him when they’ve normally used much more brutal methods on someone else.

Milobar: Next we see the two leaders of the pack as Thorg catches up with the lone Asian contestant. Thorg has decided that it’s time to fuck up Tokyo.

Donkey: Since it doesn’t have a modern day pixie jumping around ridiculously, this fight scene is actually rather mundane. But I’d like to take a moment to point out the ridiculousness of its motivations. Thorg is the only douche in this entire ordeal who’s more concerned about killing his competition than actually finishing THE GAME himself and that doesn’t make any goddamn sense. When no one has completed THE GAME in nine hundred years, doesn’t it seem kind of obvious that the death of your competition will very likely take care of itself, between the army of ninjas chasing you and the natural obstacles that you face? Shouldn’t you just be more concerned about surviving?

Milobar: If anything, you’d think that you’d want to keep these people around in the competition as fodder.

Donkey: Shit yeah. Moments after the fight concludes, Kurt Thomas catches up to them and discovers the Asian player’s body, checking and confirming that he’s dead. Kurt looks up and sees Thorg up ahead and they exchange a challenging look. I refer to it as challenging just because it’s honestly a challenge to believe that Kurty-Chops here could intimidate anyone. And I’m not really sure why Kurt would give a shit that this random guy was killed, especially since he spent so much time drooling over Thorg earlier. Once that moment is done, Thorg runs on. Of course, if it’s his policy to take on all of his opponents and kill them right away, I’m not really sure why Thorg didn’t just come back and strangle this useless garden gnome, but whatever…

Milobar: Thorg just don’t roll what way. Thorg kills one man at a time. Gotta let the killing batteries recharge.

Donkey: Apparently they recharge quickly because once Kurt climbs up the same incline, he finds himself squared off against Thorg. A brief battle ensues that only proves to highlight how terribly overmatched Kurt and his meager skills are. Gradually realizing his own uselessness, Kurt instead employs deception. As he notices a random black robed ninja with a bow and arrow that is stalking around behind him, Kurt moves around to keep himself between the shooter and Thorg. And just as the arrow flies, Kurt ducks, causing Thorg to be hit squarely in the heart. In the obvious frustration that would come with realizing that you’ve been outsmarted by a Chia Pet, Thorg snaps the shaft of the arrow off before he falls to the ground. Could this be the end of Thorg? Does it matter? Does anyone even remotely care?

Milobar: Uh oh. By now CheeseSteak Jefferson and all the others have arrived. CheeseSteak snaps his fingers…arrows everywhere! Hide behind a tree!

Donkey: CheeseSteak Jefferson and his band of merry ninjas send a volley of arrows in Kurt’s direction. He steps behind a tree, the movie then clearly cuts (obviously to a shot where Kurt isn’t actually behind the tree), the arrows rain down and pepper the area, the movie clearly cuts again, and Kurt then steps out from behind the tree.

Milobar: Since every ninja only carries one arrow, Kurty runs on and now it’s time for him to face…the Village of the Damned! That’s where this country sends all of it’s criminally insane to breed and create the ultimate killing machine.

Donkey: It’s all Crazy Town up in here. I’m waiting for a shitty band to pop up and start singing Butterfly. On a more serious note, I’m genuinely curious as to how a country this small ends up with a town of crazies this fucking large. This has got to easily be about thirty percent of their population.

Milobar: And when they’re talking about criminally insane, they’re not fucking around. This city is fucking NUTS.

Donkey: The next twenty minutes or so can only truly be described as ‘pure insanity puked up onto film’. This is almost beyond description. It’s going to push us to the very modest limits of our literary skills. It starts as Kurt Thomas wanders in and a gate closes behind him, locking him in. That’s ominous, but not nearly as much as it should be. You really have no id