I have watched a bit over half of this movie, and I have noticed..
- Ninjas letting out goofy screams of despair (or something) when they somersault from a cliff (supposedly the main character actually grabs their net and this action makes them fall, but it looks as if they simply jump on their own volition), or are thrown by the clumsy non-actor non-martial artist "star"
- The gimmick of "getting punched, and using the force of the punch to twirl around to punch the attacker" is over-used
- There is a kickdrum+crash combo pretty much EVERY time someone gets hit or jumped on in the overly-long and annoyingly comical bar fight sequence
- A guy who easily beats up dozens of 'ninja' (the dudes in black don't really deserve to be called that), is said to be "almost good enough to be a ninja" - that's movie logic for ya
- A slow-moving and clumsy guy who obviously can't express Martial Arts is said to "fight like a tiger" (in any case an inappropriate comparison, because Martial Arts requires you to kick and punch - when have you EVER seen a tiger KICK (or punch)?)
- Ninjas don't want to use guns, because although they get their butts kicked all the time by a couple of goofy guys, it would just not be 'ninja' enough
- Black clothes during daytime is a really cool way to be stealthy according to this movie (the Ninja are supposed to be actually experts in stealth techniques, even to the point of being able to travel via the etheric plane, completely unseen to this world - even according to old japanese paintings)
- When a ninja sees a stick with a hook on it, he lets out a goofy "whoo-oh"-sound and stares at the hook, being terrified of it and not able to do anything about it
- The audience is supposed to be scared for the protagonists, when a bunch of guys that the protagonists HAVE ALREADY BEATEN show up wielding a couple of sticks (yup, guns would just ruin everything, although there's lots of MILITARY and MARINE stuff in the movie - there are not many guns!), and wearing bandages!
- It's always a good idea to include a "let them pile on me so I can then rise up like a phoenix and roar like a lion, sending everyone flying all over the place"-gimmick in a Ninja movie, according to this movie
- Every streetwise Ninja movie must have a scene, where someone asks: "What the f/h is/are (a) ninja?", and then have 'ninja' explained to them so the audience can feel smart for already knowing what a 'ninja' is! I mean, who could have lived in the 1980s and NOT known what a 'ninja' is? Funnily enough, in this movie, the man who asked even knew that japanese words are always also plural, and that you don't add the usual "s" to them (I.e. "What are the Ninja?")
- It is standard procedure for a 'ninja' to perform maybe one move, and then stop and wait to get punched/kicked by the slowly moving protagonist, even when anyone could see that he could have performed various moves in that time - you see a lot of this in the movie
- Bad guys attack the protagonist one by one, never simultaneously - I guess it would just be too rude to interfere with a friend getting his ass handed to him
- Anyone getting kicked or punched MUST let out a scream or "urrgh" every single time they are punched, even when someone does it rapidly to them (adding to the comical effect tremendously)
- The protagonist lost his 'haragei' or it has become very selective (other people can 'sense' that there is 'someone there', but he can't?)
- Whenever I thought something was going to happen in a certain way, it always did (it's too easy to predict what happens next in this movie, like "oh, now he is probably going to get killed - "uaarrggh!" - yup.)
- The protagonist and his skills always need to be praised by the antagonist(s) - "This man is not human", "He fights like a tiger", etc. etc. - I guess they didn't trust the action scenes to SHOW that he's any good, so they had to put all those lines in the script to make the audience think that he's somehow really skilled and talented despite what we actually see..
I could go on, but I grow weary..
I mean, come on - I thought the first one was bad, but this is just pure groan-inducing, annoying, cartoony comedy without anything to make it worth watching - except maybe some of the neat '80s synth sounds in the soundtrack (though you don't really need to be 'watching' for that..)
How can EVEN an 'American Ninja' movie be this illogical and badly done in so many levels?
I didn't really expect much after the first one, but I must congratulate the authors of this movie - they managed to surpass the stink of the first movie, and multiply it!
And I still have the other half to go.. heeeelp!
I don't know if even a real Ninja would have strong enough stomach and endurance, stamina and constitution to be able to watch this travesty.
reply
share