Let the terror of “MasterChugs March Movie Mort Month” (yes, we’re still big fans of alliteration) continue onward! Prepare for the most star-studded cast that you may have ever seen before: Mark Dacascos, Scott Wolf, Alyssa Milano, Vanna White, George Hamilton, Michael Berryman, and Robert Patrick. With a grouping like that, you can’t go wrong with Double Dragon, right? Well, let’s keep in mind one thing–if it falls under this month’s theme, then there’s definitely something wrong on celluloid. And boy oh boy, is there ever something wrong with this picture. We’re talking stinker of one of the highest kinds. Don’t believe me? Step on inside and see.
It is the year 2007, and what was once Los Angeles is now a gruesome post-earthquake trash heap rechristened New Angeles. Seven years earlier, the Big One struck, reducing the city to rubble (well, the movie was made in 1994). The Capitol Records tower sags like a twisted accordion. Hollywood Boulevard has become the highly flammable Hollywood River, and curbside oxygen booths provide the only relief from the suffocating smog. Although order has been partially restored, by night the city is ruled by outlaw gangs of punkish monsters pumped up on steroids. Each day’s horrors are reported on television by the smiling news anchors Vanna White and George Hamilton. Madonna has just left Tom Arnold and moved to Paris, they report: “She wants to be alone.”
Playing the heroic tubular ninja dudes are Scott Wolf as Billy Lee, and Mark Dacascos as Jimmy Lee. They’re brothers, but since one is a white boy and one is a Japanese, I guess they’re brothers from different mothers. Robert Patrick got the nod as lead villain ‘Kogo Shuko,’ a frosty-haired chap hell-bent on taking over New Angeles. The cast is rounded out by a bunch of faceless bargain basement schmucks wearing leather costumes and phony mohawks, but the jewel of this Nile is most definitely ‘Marian Delario,’ played by ALYSSA MILANO. With a bleached blond crew cut. ALYSSA MILANO GOT A BLEACHED BLOND CREW CUT FOR THE DOUBLE FREAKIN DRAGON MOVIE. Off in the distance, you can almost hear her agent getting smacked in the face with a tire iron.
When the brothers’ guardian entrusts them with half of an ancient Chinese medallion that has magical powers, they find themselves menaced by Koga Shuko, the ruthless tycoon who possesses the other half. Koga Shuko’s part controls the body, and he knows how to use it. The brothers have no idea how to unleash the power of their half, which controls the soul. Koga Shuko, needless to say, wants both for himself.
Though most who’ve seen it did so on video, Double Dragon was actually in theaters, amassing a pitiful 2.3 million before the world went on a collective hunger strike to get it off the silver screen. The movie is totally idiotic, but everyone involved knew that, so the end results are pretty tongue-in-cheek. Tongue-in-cheek and poorly acted. It’s essentially a lighthearted action flick that panders to the young audience with lots of sight gags, overstated explosions, moral lessons, and ridiculous monsters. And oh yeah–matching ninja outfits with matching plastic gems. Can’t forget those. So what went wrong?
Everything. Music video director James Yukich and writers Michael Davis and Peter Gould shoot for a sense of camp fun,
but dialog like “My whole life just flashed before my eyes. Dude, I sleep a lot!” makes it difficult not to laugh at them rather than with them. Double Dragon does manage a few chuckles but little imagination. As an example, one of the few amusing moments, where the brothers let loose with a Home Alone-esque scream, is undercut by going back to the gag at least a half-dozen times. Patrick, best-known as the evil cyborg in Terminator 2, proves a toothless villain here, and the brothers are surprisingly cavalier about achieving revenge upon him, indicative of the whole production’s lightweight tone. Another cheat is the fact that the dragon amulet isn’t made whole until the final reel, and even then, its power seems rather anti-climactic.
I have always loved playing “Double Dragon.” It was awesome. The movie is awful. What’s unfortunate is that this had potential for bad movie greatness. I mean, the combination of Mark Dacascos and Robert Patrick should be electric! This was a great idea on paper, a simplistic story with a great bad movie cast. It fell apart because this movie is played for laughs, when it should have had more kickboxing. Seriously, Double Dragon isn’t a funny premise, it’s an action movie premise which is incredibly easy to adapt. (It’s two guys kickboxing the crap out of thugs who kidnapped their girlfriend and stole a magic medallion, how hard is that to adapt?) Sadly this movie is crap. Not fun crap. Just crap.
Dude, when I read your ‘Super Mario Bros.’ post last week, I instantly thought of this one. Nice pick.