The Unwatchable Archives

33. Glitter

Barring a last minute call from the governor, this is the end of the line for Unwatchable here at the Screengrab. We made it two-thirds of the way through the 100 worst movies ever made…but is there any hope of finishing this very important project? The answer may surprise you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Unwatchable lives! Well, sort of. I am barely proud…er, I mean very proud to announce the launch of Unwatchable: The Blog. As soon as I’ve loaded all the links to the existing Unwatchable posts here at the Screengrab, I will resume the countdown at this new blog. But I need your help! Now that Nerve is cutting off the funding for this worthy endeavor, I am reduced to begging you, the Unwatchable reader, for the support to see it through to the bitter end. Sure, I’d do it for free if I could, but these psychiatry bills aren’t going to pay themselves. So if you’ve enjoyed this feature and would like to see more, why not drop a buck or two in the Paypal tip jar over at the new place? Hell, I’ll even accept corporate sponsorship if you have the connections. Exxon’s Unwatchable…it has a nice ring to it, no?

There’s still some unfinished business here at the Screengrab, however, so let’s get right to Glitter, the 2001 musical starring Mariah Carey, who won a Worst Actress Razzie for her performance as fictitious diva Billie Frank. Billie’s rags to riches story is a familiar one, but given the story’s setting in the go-go New York of the ‘80s (not to mention the movie’s reputation as a camp classic), I had reason to hope for some Velveeta-smooth cheesy goodness. Unfortunately, Glitter is more dreary than gooey, and nobody likes dreary cheese.

Billie was raised by her alcoholic, torch-singing mother, until mama had one drink too many and Billie had to go live at the orphanage. At least it was a fun orphanage where Billie met Louise and Roxanne, still her best pals years later when Billie is dancing in a club and catches the eye of would-be music mogul Timothy Walker (Terrence Howard). Walker hires the trio as background vocalists and dancers for his diva project Sylk (Padme Lakshmi), but when he gets a load of Billie’s superior pipes, he turns the volume down on the atrocious lead vocals and faster than you can say Milli Vanilli, Billie’s voice is coming out of Sylk’s mouth.

The ruse doesn’t last long, and soon Billie is discovered by up-and-coming DJ/producer Dice (Max Beesley), who promises Walker $100,000 in exchange for the rights to Billie’s solo career. Backed by Dice’s Casio beats, Billie is soon on her way to superstardom and falling in love with her producer. As played by British-born Beesley, Dice has to rank among the top five worst romantic leads in motion picture history. He’s a sleazy mook in a wife-beater, gold chains and a Ratso Rizzo accent, but we’re supposed to think he’s a tortured artistic soul because he has a marimba in his apartment. Come on, that’s the oldest trick in the book!

Dice never does get around to paying off Walker, which leads to his tragic end just as Billie is mounting the Madison Square Garden stage for the biggest concert of her career. She stops the show for a big, emotional speech about never taking your loved ones for granted, and I suppose this is the moment that secured the Razzie for her. It’s true that she can’t act, but neither could Prince in Purple Rain. He had star quality, though, and you couldn’t take your eyes off him, but the same can’t be said for Carey here. In fact, when her two satellites played by Da Brat and Tia Texada are onscreen, they out-charisma her to such a degree that Carey seems to vanish from the screen…except when she’s decked out in her satin shorts/baseball cap/pigtails ensemble. Then you sort of stare at her like she’s E.T. or something.

34. House of the Dead

Eagle-eyed readers will notice I skipped over #35 on our little countdown to the worst of the worst. My rebuttal is this: What difference does it make now? I’m not going to make it to the top (that is, the bottom) of the list by the time the Screengrab signs off forever, and I had no success tracking down that #35 movie, Santa with Muscles. It doesn’t appear to have warranted a DVD release, and my attempts at tracking it down through unofficial channels have proven fruitless.

I can tell you this much about it: It’s a family-friendly comedy starring Hulk Hogan. Since I’ve already gone through the pain of reviewing such an animal for you – 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, if you’ve already forgotten – I’m not terribly saddened that I couldn’t find Santa with Muscles. However, we can at least take a moment to enjoy the trailer together, no?

 [YouTube clip redacted]

Aw, nobody told me Clint Howard was in it! What a shame. Still, there’s no time to linger over what might have been. Let’s move on up to #34, which is, by my count, the third Uwe Boll movie to appear in our festering little festival. First we thrilled to the vampire western BloodRayne 2: Deliverance, adapted from the hit videogame! Then we chilled to the “mighty tedious cacaphony of automatic gunfire and bad special effects” Alone in the Dark, adapted from the hit videogame! And now we have the zombie movie House of the Dead…adapted from the hit videogame!

The difference here is that I’ve actually whiled away an hour or three playing House of the Dead in my time, and I can attest that Mr. Boll’s versions lacks the foreboding mood, in-depth characterizations and ingenious twists of the original. It also lacks a house, which is, strangely enough, the setting of the original House of the Dead. There’s a secret rave being held on the Isle de la Muerte, which is more of an island than a house, although it is crawling with zombies. And, hey – there he is! It’s Clint Howard in a yellow rain slicker, looking like a cross between the guy on the Beach Cliff sardines can and a ferret.

To give Mr. Boll his due, I must admit House of the Dead is a groundbreaking work: it’s the first movie based on a videogame that is actually less entertaining than watching someone else play a videogame for two hours. Boll also finds a clever way to cover up the excessive gore that comes from many, many heads exploding, by utilizing frequent cut-aways from the live-action slaughter of zombies to actual videogame footage of same. Wait, did I say “clever”? I believe I meant “boneheaded.” It’s clear that Boll’s earlier Unwatchable appearances were a mere warm-up; House of the Dead is the real deal.

36. Daddy Day Camp

I’ve got good news and bad news, Unwatchable fans. The bad news you probably already know. There’s no way I’m going to be able to complete my march to the top of the IMDb Bottom 100 list before the Screengrab shuffles off this mortal coil. The good news is that, despite this devastating setback, I am determined to complete the Unwatchable project one way or another.

Wait – that’s the good news? Well, it may not be good news for me or my psyche, but I’d hate to leave you all hanging. I’m searching for a new home for Unwatchable (make me an offer!), so be sure to check my blog frequently for updates.

There’s no time for eulogies just yet, however! Unless we’re talking about eulogies for Cuba Gooding’s career. Perhaps you dimly recall Daddy Day Care, one of Eddie Murphy’s more insipid family-friendly vehicle of recent vintage. Murphy opted out of the sequel – probably to make Norbit or Meet Dave or some other ungodly piece of shit – and the producers were left to rack their brains for a replacement. Could they possibly find an even more shameless, milquetoast, edgy-as-a-marshmallow African-American actor than Murphy has become over the past fifteen years? Who better than the star of Snow Dogs, Rat Race and Boat Trip – yes, none other than Radio himself, Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Gooding reprises Murphy’s role of affable dad Charlie Hinton, while some random fat white guy takes over for Jeff Garlin in the role of Charlie’s fat white guy friend, Phil. Having achieved tremendous success as the owners of Daddy Dad Care, Charlie and Phil face a new challenge when they take over the rundown summer camp they attended as youths. Camp Driftwood is facing foreclosure thanks to the popularity of the upscale camp across the lake, Camp Canola, run by Charlie’s childhood tormenter, Lance Warner (Lochlyn Munro).

Once the kids arrive at camp, we’re treated to two of the highest forms of humor: adorable tots who all speak like Catskills comedians, and emissions both gaseous and tangible emitting with increasing frequency from every bodily orifice. There’s a recreation of the famous Blazing Saddles campfire scene, except with belching instead of farting. But don’t worry – there’s also farting! Also vomiting, pooping, nut-punching and balloons filled with piss. All the classics! Gooding brings his usual dignity to the proceedings, which means his face is perpetually plastered with the same expression my dog sports whenever he’s left a special present hidden somewhere in the house.

37. Bad Girls from Valley High

First let me tell you a little about the movie I won’t be telling you about today. As any loyal Unwatchable reader knows, occasionally the IMDb Bottom 100 list presents us with a stumper. As I consulted the list in preparation for today’s entry, the title at #37 struck me as vaguely familiar: Hababam sinifi 3,5. I checked the archives and sure enough, the originally scheduled title for Unwatchable #59 was Hababam sinifi askerde, an earlier installment in the Hababam sinifi series of Turkish comedies. Apparently there’s a hardcore band of Hababam sinifi haters in Turkey…which doesn’t really help my cause since these movies aren’t available in the U.S. However, I was able to find a few YouTube clips, and I like to think this one captures the essence of whatever it is that makes these movies so hateable:

 [YouTube clip redacted]

With that out of the way, it’s time to find a substitute for Unwatchable #37, which I accomplish by consulting the current version of the Bottom 100 list and selecting the first title that does not appear on the list I’ve been working from all along. And that selection, as you already know, is 2005’s Bad Girls from Valley High. A promising title, you might agree, but alas…

Like the earlier Unwatchable The Smokers, what we have here is a “chick clique” flick that draws its meager inspiration from the likes of Heathers and its many imitators. The bee-yootiful Julie Benz (Angel, Dexter), a good decade too old for the role, stars as 17-year-old Danielle, queen bee of Valley Gorge High School. Her obligatory satellites are Tiffany (Nicole Bilderback) and Brooke (Monica Keena), the one with a sliver of a conscience. Danielle may be Miss Popularity, but there’s one thing she wants but doesn’t have: dreamy Drew (former child star Jonathan Brandis). Drew only has eyes for his girlfriend Charity Chase, until the day Danielle and her minions decide to put a scare into her and accidentally cause her to fall to her death.

A year later, the students of Valley Gorge High are still mourning what they think is Charity’s suicide, none more so than Drew. Danielle is ready to make her move on him, but she is thwarted by the arrival of Romanian exchange student Katarina, who soon has Drew emerging from his funk. Danielle plots to get rid of Katarina in similar fashion as Charity, but her efforts are hampered when she, Tiffany and Brooke begin to suffer from humiliating bodily breakdowns. Tiffany’s eyesight worsens, Brooke gets all farty and Danielle starts uncontrollably whizzing herself. The bad girls begin to suspect Katarina is actually Charity’s ghost, and that she’s put a curse on them.

Aside from providing humiliating late career roles for Christopher Lloyd (as a suspicious, accident-prone teacher) and Janet Leigh (as a comatose stroke victim – don’t ask), Bad Girls from Valley High is just the sort of dopey, barely competent high school comedy you’d expect to go straight to video after sitting on a shelf for five years, which it did. The suicide storyline is particularly queasy-making in retrospect, as co-star Brandis killed himself between the time of shooting and the eventual DVD release. I guess I’ll never know whether or not this is a worse movie than Hababam sinifi 3,5; that will simply have to remain one of the enduring mysteries…of the Unwatchable.

38. Chairman of the Board

The history of prop comics successfully making the transition to leading men of cinema is a short one. And when I say short, I actually mean nonexistent. If anyone was going to pull it off, you’d figure it would be Gallagher, or at least his evil brother Gallagher II. Neither Gallagher, however, even attempted a run at stardom on the silver screen. As for other prop comics…well, it’s hard to think of any. Wikipedia claims Rip Taylor counts, even though his only prop of note is his ubiquitous bag of confetti. They also include Harpo Marx on their roster of prop comics, which may technically be true, but let’s get real. The hall of prop comic fame basically boils down to Gallagher, who never starred in a movie, and Carrot Top, who starred in one. This is that movie.

The Carrot Top of 1998’s Chairman of the Board is not the steroidal, absurdly over-muscled alien of today – and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, get a load of this…this…thing:

Sorry I had to do that to you, but Jesus! What the hell is wrong with some people? It’s not that Mr. Top was any prize in his scrawny Chairman of the Board incarnation – he’s still got the fishy face and frizzy orange mane – but at least he didn’t look like he was auditioning for the lead role in RoboClown. The task for director Alex Zamm (The Pooch and the Pauper, straight-to-DVD sequels to Inspector Gadget and Dr. Dolittle) and his team of writers was a daunting one: build a movie around this goofball. They took the path of least resistance, casting the Carrot as an inventor named Edison – a zany inventor of items (ketchup gun, anatomically correct fanny pack) that wouldn’t look out of place in a prop comic’s supply trunk – and surrounding him with a Pee-Wee’s Beach House production design. Edison is a Venice Beach surfer dude whose notebook full of inspiration has yet to yield a profitable idea. One afternoon he has a chat with wealthy executive Armand McMillan (Jack Warden), a fellow surfer and dreamer. When Armand kicks the bucket shortly thereafter, Edison is stunned to learn he’s inherited the multi-million dollar McMillan corporation – although not as stunned as Armand’s son Bradford (Larry Miller), who had planned on assuming the mantle of…chairman of the board.

While Bradford schemes to regain control of the company, Edison becomes the toast of the boardroom by averting a worker’s strike and concocting a best-selling line of TV dinners with actual miniature televisions included in the trays. He also woos executive Natalie Stockwell, played by the lovely Courtney Thorne-Smith, who must be one hell of a good sport. As if it’s not bad enough she’s spent the past eight years cuddling up to Jim Belushi in the quintessential “fat guy with hot wife” sitcom According to Jim, she’s also smooched the rubbery lips of Carrot Top.

If not for its star, Chairman of the Board would merely be a witless, infantile comedy devoid of laughs, but there is some fun to be had in trying to read the body language of his co-stars as they are forced to interact with this shrill, hyper freak. Larry Miller in particular seems to retreat to a safe place in his mind every time Carrot Top gets near him (perhaps the place where he cashes his paychecks). As it turns out, Chairman of the Board was both the first and last starring vehicle for Mr. Top, but when they start casting the villains for the next Batman movie, I’d advise him to send in a headshot.

39. The Invisible Maniac

Our journey through unwatchability has so far encompassed the work of such legendary schlock directors as Ed Wood, Uwe Boll and Albert Pyun, but now it’s time to make the case for an underrated purveyor of cinematic swill, a filmmaker who may not be a first ballot Hall of Shamer, but whose body of work is beginning to attract some attention among cutting edge cine-sabermetricians. You may know this man as Rif Coogan, but his real name is Adam Rifkin.

If the name rings a bell, you may be thinking of The Dark Backward, a 1991 Judd Nelson vehicle that was specifically engineered to be a cult favorite midnight movie, a strategy that pretty much never works. Or perhaps you’re reminded of The Chase, in which Rifkin tapped into that hidden longing within us all to be stuck in a car for 90 minutes with Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson. Maybe you vaguely recall Detroit Rock City, the comedy about four teenagers trying to scam their way into a KISS concert, or Night at the Golden Eagle, described by IMDb commenter stewart0602 as “the kind of work that grabs your package and squeezes for 90 minutes,” or the Austin-shot Homo Erectus, which only saw release under the straight-to-DVD title National Lampoon’s Stoned Age.

For this installment of Unwatchable, we delve deep into the Rifkin catalogue, all the way back to 1990 for The Invisible Maniac. Even in this early work, the Rifkin sensibility is on full display: quirky characters, broad humor and, most importantly, boobies. Lots and lots of naked boobies, many of them quite impressive and pleasing to the boobie aficionado. The cast includes Shannon Wisely, who would go on to a long and successful career in erotica as Savannah before her death in 1994 (I’ll never forget her exquisite work in Dixie Dynamite and the All-Star Tit Queens), Melissa Moore (Sorority House Massacre II, Bikini Drive-In), Stephanie Blake (“Stripper” in Mambo Kings, “Stripper in Big T’s” in Whore and “Tattooed Topless Dancer” in Danger Zone II: Reaper’s Revenge) and Claudette Rains, which I’m going to guess is a little in-joke by Mr. Rifkin.

The Invisible Maniac himself is played by Noel Peters in his only leading role and practically his only role of any kind (apparently he’s also in a 1997 TV-movie of Cinderella). Peters plays physicist Dr. Kevin Dorwinkle, who reacts badly when his colleagues laugh at his proposed molecular discombobulator and kills them all. He later escapes the asylum for the criminally insane and poses as a high school physics teacher, a gig that provides him plenty of opportunities to ogle nubile babes. Even more opportunities present themselves once he perfects his formula and is able to render himself invisible.

Although Rifkin was no doubt inspired by the rich history of invisibility literature and film, I’d have to guess that the opening scene of Carrie served as his primary muse. He seems determined to absolutely exhaust the possibilities of the high school girl’s locker room and, more specifically, the showers within, which he envisions as an all-singing, all-dancing nonstop party of sudsy boobs and steam rising from glistening buttocks. Who among us would not want to harness the secret to invisibility given these circumstances? (I’m asking the straight fellas here, obviously. You ladies and gay dudes are welcome to visualize soapy ballsacks or whatever it is that turns you on.)

Anyway, copious boobage aside, The Invisible Maniac is a rather tedious slog, thanks in large part to Peters’ charmless lead performance. The supporting cast isn’t much better, but in fairness to them, Rifkin does handicap their efforts by forcing them to engage in all manner of amateur mime activity in order to simulate their struggles with the invisible maniac. “I’ve got my hands around his neck! Oh no, I’m punching him and missing! Ha ha, he’s tickling me!” This sort of thing. There is a bonus for sticking with the movie all the way to the end: two more boobies!

40. Son of the Mask

(Last week, with the help of a reader’s thoughtful intervention, I decided it would be a good idea to take a little breather from the Unwatchable project. In retrospect, I was hitting the IMDb Bottom 100 a little too hard for a few weeks there, and it’s clear I was feeling a bit burned out. Fortunately for you and (especially) for me, however, number 40 on the list is a movie I’ve already seen. Not only that, I already reviewed it when it came out. Since that review is no longer available online, I present it to you here with minor alterations.)

If he keeps working hard and honing his craft, Jamie Kennedy may one day achieve his goal of becoming a second-rate Jim Carrey. On the evidence of Son of the Mask, that day has not yet arrived. Having learned no lessons from its dismal flop Dumb and Dumberer, the last sequel to a Carrey comedy to go forth without its original star, New Line Cinema has churned out another belated follow-up.

The 1994 movie that introduced the Mask and helped launch Carrey to stardom was based on a Dark Horse comic book series influenced by legendary Looney Toons animator Tex Avery. Computer generated effects were in their infancy at the time, so the live-action cartoon approach of The Mask had some novelty value. Ten years later, the CGI thrill is long gone, but apparently director Lawrence Guterma (Cats and Dogs) didn’t get the memo.

At least Kennedy isn’t playing the same character as Carrey; in a nod to The Mask’s origins, he’s a wannabe animator named Tim Avery. While his wife Tonya (Traylor Howard) is eager to get their family started, the reluctant Tim still harbors hopes of launching his own show at the cartoon studio where he serves as in-house mascot. Meanwhile, the Norse god of mischief Loki (Alan Cumming) has raised the ire his dad Odin (Bob Hoskins) by losing the titular mask. Thanks to the Avery family pooch, the mask falls into Tim’s hands just in time for the company Halloween party. When he puts it on his face, he morphs into a green-faced whirling dervish with unearthly transformative powers, but lacks the manic, leering menace Carrey brought to the table. He’s like the children’s party version of The Mask. Tim apparently wears the mask to bed that night, and nine months later a son is born. Having inherited the mask’s powers, little Alvey sets about making life a living hell for daddy. Father and son bond, however, when Loki arrives on the scene, determined to reclaim the mask.

Guterman and screenwriter Lance Kazhei have concocted some busy Rube Goldberg sequences in hopes of recapturing the anarchic spirit of Avery’s Looney Toons, but their execution is hit-and-miss. Too often the results are more frantic and noisy than inspired. Cumming has his moments, but like everyone else in the movie, he’s overwhelmed by the digital clutter. None of the technological advancements of the past decade can make the tired slapstick and gross-out gags any funnier.

(I originally gave Son of the Mask a grade of C-, which was the system I was using at the time this review was published. I’m certainly not going to revisit the movie now, so let’s say that translates as three Maurys.)

41. Troll 2

This is historic, people - a rare SXSW/Unwatchable crossover. Although Troll 2 comes in at number 41 on the version of the IMDb Bottom 100 list I’ve been working from, there’s no doubt that it has spent some time in the number one spot. In fact, this is proven in Best Worst Movie, the terrific documentary about the cult of Troll 2 I just told you about. I wouldn’t want to take that honor away from it, but we’ve got a system here at Unwatchable, so for our purposes, Troll 2 doesn’t even crack the Top…er, Bottom 40. What a relief that will be for director Claudio Fragasso.

So the big question is: does Troll 2 live down to the hype? Is it a cult movie for the ages or just another stinker to be briefly considered and discarded on our way to the bottom? Well, I doubt I’ll be watching Troll 2 dozens of times like some of the people interviewed in Best Worst Movie, but there’s no way I can call it unwatchable. It could never be confused with run-of-the-mill junk like Another 9 1/2 Weeks or American Ninja V; it’s so very, very wrong in every single aspect that it creates its own fully realized world. A nonsensical, ridiculous world, yes, but you can’t say Fragasso doesn’t have a vision.

Michael Paul Stephenson, now director of Best Worst Movie but then an 11-year-old boy, stars as annoying little Joshua Waits. Along with the rest of the ostensibly normal all-American Waits family - father Michael (George Hardy), mother Diana (Margo Prey) and sister Holly (Connie McFarland) - Joshua is getting ready to spend a month in the country. Specifically, the Waits clan will be house-sitting for a family in Nilbog, Utah, while that family spends a month at the Waits house.

When the Waits clan arrives at their vacation home, a welcome feast has been set out for their consumption. As the ghost of Joshua’s grandfather informs him, this feast is made up of goblin food. I don’t think I would have needed a dead relative to inform me there was something a little off about the food judging from the bright green hue, but the rest of the family is perfectly content to dig in. Joshua must stop them, so grandpa freezes time for 30 seconds so he can urinate all over the meal. This leads to Troll 2’s most famous scene:

 [YouTube clip redacted]

There’s more, oh, so much more. There’s a general store that sells only curdled milk. A witchy temptress who uses a corn cob as a means of seduction. The revelation that Nilbog is…wait for it…”goblin” spelled backwards, and that the town is populated by goblins who use their bright green food to turn humans into plant-people they can then consume. The town elder’s speech about the evils of meat (including foul-smelling urine and clusters of hemorrhoids), the incomparable weight-lifting and dance stylings of Connie McFarland, the glassy-eyed, overmedicated mother’s demand that Joshua sing that song she likes, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” the satisfying knowledge that the power of goodness and double bologna sandwiches are all that is required to defeat the forces of evil…you might be tempted to think someone made Troll 2 this mind-bendingly awful on purpose, but Best Worst Movie proves otherwise.

I don’t know what sort of rating to give Troll 2. On the one hand, if any movie deserves the full four Maurys, it’s this one. On the other hand, it seems unfair to lump it in with unimaginative, soul-sucking garbage like Meatballs 4. I’m not ready to sign up for the cult, but I have to admit Troll 2 could very well be the most watchable Unwatchable so far.

42. Zombie Nightmare

I don’t like to feel sorry for myself when I’m writing up these Unwatchable entries. I took this task on voluntarily, and I’m determined to see it through, so there’s no point whining about it. I’ll just say this: nobody’s life should have this many zombie movies in it. OK, maybe George Romero is an exception, but at least he’s made a good living at it. Me, I’ve got at least one SXSW zombie movie on deck later this week, and now this…thing.

I’ll give Zombie Nightmare this much: it’s an old school, voodoo-based zombie movie, which makes it a change of pace from all the apocalyptic walking dead flicks we’ve been bombarded with of late. Jon Mikl Thor stars as Tony Washington, a hulking, heavily mulleted young man who favors ripped muscle shirts that flatter his well-oiled physique. If you remember the Barbarian Brothers, well, picture one of them. I’m not sure which.

After busting up a liquor store robbery with a baseball bat, Tony is unceremoniously flattened by a carload of joyriding teens. His grieving mother summons the local voodoo priestess, who reluctantly transforms the late lad into an undead vengeance machine. Zombie Tony makes the rounds, tracking down the unrepentent young people who caused his demise and returning the favor. The local police captain (Adam West) is content to pin the crimes on a scuzzy punk rocker, but the murders continue until the fresh-faced young cop tracks Zombie Tony down at the warehouse where he’s cornered his latest victims.

Anyone nostalgic for slow zombies will find what they’re looking for here, but sadly, Zombie Tony’s sluggish pace has infected the entire movie surrounding him. Adam West fans shouldn’t get too excited either, as TV’s Batman has limited screen time (although he does eventually get dragged into hell). Those of you who can’t get enough of ’80s fashions, hairstyles, heavy metal (including incidental music by the star’s band Thor as well as powerful synthesizer riffs by “Thorkestra”) and Tia Carrere (the actress, not the band) may be able to salvage some entertainment value from Zombie Nightmare, but I wouldn’t count on it.

43. American Ninja V

I have to admit, I’ve never really cared about ninjas. Never had a ninja phase. I’m not even all that clear on what constitutes a ninja. For instance, last week I wrote about 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, in which the ninjas were little kids with slapsticky martial arts moves. I’m not sure what distinguished them from karate kids; they didn’t do any mind tricks or disappear in puffs of smoke. Whereas if I am to judge ninjas from American Ninja V, those skills are part of the package. And don’t even get me started on the teenage mutant ninja turtles, who have some sort of pizza-related power I’ve never been clear about.

So yeah, as you’ve probably guessed from the above, I have never seen American Ninja I-IV. Apparently this doesn’t really matter, since I am reliably informed that the American Ninja of the fifth installment is not the same American Ninja from the third and fourth entries, although the same “actor,” David Bradley has the lead role. He is also apparently not the same American Ninja as the one played by Michael Dudikoff in the first two American Ninja movies, even though they are both named Joe, while the middle American Ninja was named Sean. Also, Michael Dudikoff came back for the fourth installment, but not the third or fifth, so American Ninja 4: The Annihilation is the only one to feature both American Ninjas. I don’t understand why it has to be so complicated, so let’s go back to the part where I said it doesn’t really matter.

So there’s Joe, played by David Bradley, who reminds me of the Kickboxer 4 guy in an bland musclehead way. He lives on his boat, which is being revarnished by attractive Lisa (Anne Dupont) due to a crazy mix-up. Fortunately, Joe has a timely house-sitting gig for Master Tetsu (Pat Morita), but unfortunately the gig comes with babysitting duties, as Tetsu’s grandson Hiro is left in Joe’s care.

Meanwhile, Lisa is kidnapped by evil ninjas working for an unethical arms merchant who has already kidnapped Lisa’s scientist father, who has invented a new insecticide that can be used as a biological weapon against humans in concentrated doses. The movie consists mainly of scenes in which Joe rescues Lisa and scenes in which Joe rescues Hiro, who keeps tagging along and getting in trouble. Every once in a while, a ninja disappears in a puff of smoke. I still don’t know how that works.

Given the emphasis on the little ninja kid, as well as the supporting role for Pat Morita (who himself appears in a puff of smoke at one point), what we have here bears more resemblance to an unofficial Karate Kid sequel than a hardcore martial arts movie. I didn’t think there was enough of a shortage of official Karate Kid sequels to warrant a fake one, but then again, I didn’t know there were five American Ninja movies and four 3 Ninjas movies until I started this project. I am learning so much.