Post by ronnierocketago on Apr 7, 2009 5:39:27 GMT
GYMKATA (1985) - *1/2
"This intrigue-soaked martial arts melee favors action over plausibility" - Netflix description of GYMKATA, and fucking understatement of the year.
Goddamn you Howard Beale's Toothpaste. You kept persisting in my Netflix threat at the AwardsDaily Forums to review this one, and I kept putting it off. I've been aware about the infamous GYMKATA for years, and lets just say its ill-repute proceeded itself. Lets just say that I had an idea that this was a loser when badmovies.org reviewed it (usually not a promising sign) and on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000, the puppet wisecrack Crow T. Robot would yell "Gymkata!"[/i] during a lame fight scene. Back in high school, if GYMKATA had been on DVD or available on VHS in my area, me and my awful film-loving buddies would have probably rushed out to embrace it. But since I'm out of college, I just have less and less interest in pursuing such obvious dogshit.
Oh what am I kidding? I'm the local action cinema nerd at AwardsDaily, hell I'm the asshole who wrote a decent review of 12 ROUNDS. Me avoiding GYMKATA is just delaying the inevitable, especially when it won a Warner Bros. on-line contest by popular vote at Amazon.com back in 2006 to get released onto DVD. A complete box-office and critical failure back in 1985, apparently it has subsequently grown a cult following because a whole generation of dudes watched it late nights on HBO and TBS, and found it as an unintentional comedy classic worthy of Ed Wood because of pathetic production values, stupid logic, and a dubious premise, even for the standards of 1980s action cinema. In fact over at YouTube, there is a SWIMKATA parody "starring" recent OIympic gold medal swimmer/pot smoker Michael Phelps:
Yes GYMKATA is silly, but so-bad-its-funny? No, just bad.
Now unlike some folks, I won't just outright dismiss the idea of a gymnist playing the action hero. Their rigorous training gives them incredible flexibility, sustained physical endurance, and a great equilibrium of balance and timing. Certainly with GYMKATA's lead, former American Olympic gymnist Kurt Thomas, I was rather impressed with his numerous continuous flips, slides, somersaults, and jumps. My favorite though was him walking hand stand up stairs. That shit should have been used in a ROCKY movie montage.
Besides, this was the Reagan Decade when varying athletes became movie stars from a Mr. Olympia legend (Arnold Schwarzenegger), an European kickboxing champ (Jean Claude Van Damme), and an akido master (Steven Seagal), so GYMKATA's producers probably thought they could do the same with Thomas, with women and gay men buying tickets just for his tight thighs (especially for that awkward upclose shot of his crotch in that clip above.)
I won't gang up on Thomas' acting ability as badly others have. Yes he lacks the physical presence or charisma for which you could hang such a popcorn film around, but not necessarily a complete total failure. He just comes off as a wimpy crybaby. You know, a pussy. Shit his love interest is tougher than him! It doesn't help that with the mullet, he looks like Richard Dean Anderson MACGYVER, minus the balls.
Anyway, he has one good scene when he's talking a chat by himself in smartass fashion, while doing complete somersaults inbetween. That was kinda cute, so I gotta give him credit there, but don't let it go to your head Mr. Thomas.
Of course gymnastics can only do so much for you in a fight, which actually isn't all that much. Even legends marked for defying gravity without CGI like Jackie Chan or Tony Jaa know that umping around alone isn't credible enough in fights. A telling sign is that the GYMKATA filmmakers knew this, so they gave Thomas a genre obligatory training montage, where in two months he becomes a martial arts master or whatever, complete with cliche zen teaching mumbo jumbo. But his brawls are well like those from those old school 1970s kung fu "chopsocky" flicks, with SNAP, CRACKLE, and POP punch/kick sound effects, and phantom punches everywhere.
With that, I want to giggle like obviously the GYMKATA cult fandom, but I can't. It's not ludicrous, its just stupid. After the 70s, I expect to see such stuff in parodies of the Bruce Lee Era, not in actioneers. Supposedly GYMKATA is named after this new martial art combining gymnastics with...martial arts, but its never uttered anywhere in the film from my memory. I guess after the movie was in the can, the producers realized they had an action credibility problem, so they etched that title and poster together to try to turn a negative into a positive. Try.
But that nonsense is marbles compared to a ludicrous scene where while being chased by thugs, there is a iron bar above the street. Why is it there? Oh because Thomas needs to show off his hot gym moves. Anyway, he grabs it and keeps twirling in circles around it, and the henchmen are so damn stupid enough to just keep walking into him. You know movie fights always have struggled with the logical gap in that groups only fight a hero one at a time, instead of rushing him all at once, or just grabbing a gun and pull the trigger. That element has never particularly bothered me.
Until now.
Then you have the infamous town square brawl, where in the middle of this supposed village of the criminally insane, there just happens to be a well that's shaped just like a pommel horse, which Thomas proceeds to beat those nutjobs with endless kicks. Seeing is believing.
Told ya.
As for the plot (who cares?), the CIA recruits Thomas to compete in The Game in the tiny mountain nation of Parmistan, which despite supposedly located in the Hindu Kush mountain region, looks more like Eastern Europe, complete with gypsy stereotypes and medieval architecture. Maybe one of the Crusades got distracted along the way to the Middle East? In this deadly Game, which every outside visitor must participate in, where the losers die. Damn I would sure hate to get assigned to that Embassy post. The winner though gets any wish fulfilled, and the CIA wants the country as a relay station site for the Star Wars defensive weapons system.
Does that plot sound familiar? Well it fucking should, for its practically a remake of the Bruce Lee classic ENTER THE DRAGON, which was directed by Robert Clouse, who years later shot GYMKATA. That's just sad. If you've never see ENTER, lets just say the biggest difference between that action classic and this anti-classic, is to quote The Outlaw Vern: "But instead of Bruce Lee you get fucking Kurt Thomas."
It's too easy to poke fun at such a retarded story notion, but imagine a GYMKATA sequel where 25 years later, that relay site lays rusting away as Star Wars was revealed to be a very expensive, unworkable idea, the same with its successor programs. Thomas could ponder how he risked his life, nearly killed several times, ultimately for something irrelevant. At least by then, he would have grown a pair hopefully. I would pay to see that movie.
Off-topic, but anyone that slaps President Obama's recent attempts to repair our image to the world should watch this scene. They'll understand why he's over in Europe and Turkey this past week.
If you think that's funny, then you'll howl with laughter when the hero confronts his though-long-dead father, but shortly after their reunion the old man gets killed by an arrow to the back by the villain Richard Norton. What a dick. OK that was funny.
The only truely good scenes that ever truely intrigued me were in that Village, with nutty moments that were just random. You have a guy that attacks Thomas with a knife, fails, and then chops his hand off. A monk in robes gestures Thomas to come to him, then he turns and he's bare-ass. My favorite is that guy with a static face standing still next to a wall, then he turns his head to reveal that was a fake face on the back of his head. A cool RESIDENT EVIL-esque (the games, not the shitty movies) shot is when Thomas finds one of his competitors run through the face into the wall by a pitchfork, with blood pouring down the cobbled street, and a dog lapping it up.
But so what? I've already rambled enough, so I'll wrap it all by saying that GYMKATA was like those AMERICAN NINJA pictures from the same decade, super low budget, cheesy but without any Kraft charm. The acting is nonexistent, the villainy is duller than dishwater, there is absolutely no chemistry at all between Thomas and his would-be Princess love interest, logic is a curse word in these parts, and most of all I was bored, not entertained at all. No, not even in a supposed Ed Wood sort of way, but more in a painful Uwe Boll fashion.
In short, when the hero does inevitably defeat the villain, I so want to mock him to his face. Man, you just got your ass handed to ya by a gymnist! And you're next Howard Beale's Toothpaste. If you know, Thomas has free time anytime soon.