Movie Review

I thought, since we're always looking for good films, especially films with good fight scenes, I'd begin a movie review thing here, just mentioning movies we've seen recently, etc. especially if they have many stunts involved. I'll also most likely include select TV shows.

Today's film: 18 Fingers of Death. The premise here is actually hilarious--written and directed by a martial arts actor, it's a mockumentary about a martial arts/action star that makes his next movie with the help of a sassy African-American highschool kid. Several cameos in here, from Lorenzo Lamas to Pat Morita. The reason we even put this one on our Netflix is: the many parodies--this film pays mocking homage to any martial arts actor/action star you can think of, and has really solid martial art-y fight choreography. However,

...the bad acting and awful script just doesn't hold it together as I'd hoped. There's too much badly-written story, stereotype jokes that jump back and forth between racism and just eye-rolling lameness, and there's not enough of the parody stuff that makes it interesting to begin with.

Highlights: Lorenzo Lamas as an Antonio Banderas spoof; filming a martial arts scene in a park, with obviously homemade costumes; the "martial arts acting" class where students learn to move their lips off from their speech; the ditzy female lead obviously is a stuntwoman or at least trained; and finally, the stuntpeople's rehearsal, wherein they learn how to circle the hero and snake their heads at him.

Bottom Line: ** out of *****. Image from myspace-893.vo.llnwd.net/.../87/627967893_l.jpg