Kickboxer: Vengeance

MOVIE TITLE: Kickboxer: Vengeance

DIRECTOR: John Stockwell

YEAR: 2016

GENRE: Martial Arts

RATING: R for bloody violence, mild swearing, and nudity

GRADE: Mixed

Martial arts prospect Kurt Sloane travels to Thailand to exact revenge for his brother Eric after undefeated Muay Thai champion Tong Po kills Eric in an underground fight. Kurt attempts to murder Po in his sleep with a pistol, but gets taken away by the police instead. Kurt’s only chance at avenging his brother is to train with the legendary Master Durand, who initially prepared Eric for his own fight with Tong Po. While all of this is going on, the Thai police are building a case against a fight promoter with corrupt connections to the law. Between Tong Po and Marcia (the crooked promoter), Kurt Sloane has an uphill battle that will see him spill more blood on the canvas than even his own dead brother.

Because this is a marital arts movie with various UFC fighters and former WWE Champion Dave Bautista in starring roles, the obvious positive point of this movie was the high octane violence. Kurt Sloane is a badass warrior, but even he has to succumb to much more powerful fighters in the early going of the movie. The training under Master Durand is no joke: cracking coconuts, bicycling under water, vertical pushups, and of course, getting the crap kicked out of him from time to time by his own teacher. No battle in this movie is gorier than Kurt’s eventual championship fight with Tong Po (it’s not much of a spoiler since even the dumbest viewer can see it from miles away). In that fight, blood splatters the arena like a modern art masterpiece as they get to use glass-covered gloves and katanas. All in all, this is a well-choreographed movie. Every beating Kurt takes both in training and in real fights will shape him to become the ultimate Muay Thai warrior (or he can die trying, one of the two).

And then we have the low points of the movie, most of which include clichés, bad acting from UFC fighters, cheesy dialogue, and characters I couldn’t give a damn about either way. As far as clichés go, there are so many of them peppered throughout the movie: classic revenge tale, training a nobody to become a champion in a short time span, instant relationships, vanilla sex, and lax authority just to name a few. The characters were so badly acted that I couldn’t get emotionally invested in them. I didn’t shed one tear when Eric was murdered by Tong Po. It felt like Eric and all the other characters were just there for the sake of being there. The only performance I could really praise was Dave Bautista as he took the role of the villainous Tong Po. He had the look, the athleticism, and the menacing aura of a warrior, all of which he probably picked up while working with the WWE. Other than that, there’s really nobody to cheer for in this movie.

I’m probably being a little too generous when I give this movie a mixed grade (three stars out of five), but I’m a huge fan of martial arts ultra violence, so that’s pretty much the only thing that saved the movie from being a train wreck. It would be hypocritical of me to disrespect the violence in this movie considering I watch pro-wrestling and mixed-martial arts on a regular basis. The storylines, dialogue, and acting in WWE isn’t always Oscar-worthy, but at least it keeps bringing me back to my TV every Monday and Tuesday. Maybe a mixed grade is appropriate after all.

Movie Reviews

***MOVIE REVIEWS***

For the past week, I’ve been editing the shit out of Poison Tongue Tales in preparation for publishing the damn thing on Amazon. Although I only have eleven short stories left on the task list, I never realized until now how long I’ve gone without doing any serious first draft writing. Sure, I wrote a heavy metal song called “Knives to Meet You”, but that’s not really enough since writing poetry is easier for me than a chapter of a novel or a short story. I missed the last WSS contest because I’ve been so busy with PTT (and trying to get out of a sleepy haze). The “One Job” experiment is proving to be a dud. I miss writing Demon Axe chapters and short stories.

Another thing I miss writing is reviews. It’s a long time in between reading sessions of “What Hides in the Darkness” by KL Cottrell. I also haven’t seen any movies lately, which is weird because I still have a $25 Regal Cinemas gift card from Christmas last year. I could just download a movie on my computer, but judging from how my WWE Network videos have either frozen or skipped, I’m not sure any other movie-watching source will be better. I used to have a Roku, but that too skipped and froze at inopportune times and now it’s in a landfill somewhere due to it frying out. I could use my brother’s Playstation 4, but that doesn’t really belong to me, so his TV watching and videogame playing (along with Reina’s) takes priority over mine.

If I can find a way to watch movies on a regular basis to fill my time between creative projects, then reviewing them will be a new outlet for me. I’ve already written a few movie reviews here and there, whether it’s Zootopia, Ben and Me, or St. Vincent just to name a few. But this is something I could do on a regular basis as a labor of love. Sure, it’s not going to advance my writing career, but then again, why does everything I do have to be about my profession? Besides, doing these reviews will keep my writing skills sharp, which is important considering my last chapter of Demon Axe was written two weeks ago with almost nothing in between.

I’ve already come up with a short list of movies I’d like to watch and review. If you want to add anything to this list, let me know and I’ll take it into consideration. Here’s what I have so far:

1. Copycat
2. Crossface (NOT RELEASED YET)
3. Cure For Wellness, A
4. Deadpool
5. Die Watching
6. Fighting with My Family (NOT RELEASED YET)
7. Flintstones X WWE: Stone Age Smackdown
8. Ghost in the Shell
9. Jetsons X WWE: Robo-Wrestlemania
10. Kickboxer: Vengeance
11. Lego Batman Movie, The
12. Logan
13. Manchester By the Sea
14. Power Rangers
15. Robin Hood (Disney)
16. Star Wars: Rogue One
17. Thinning, The
18. WWE 24: Seth Rollins: Redesign, Rebuild, Reclaim

Not the world’s longest list, but that’s only because I’ve spent so long not watching movies that I don’t know what else to add. Yes, I know how ironic that is considering I minored in theater arts at WWU. It’s even more ironic that I originally wanted to major in cinema, but WWU didn’t offer that degree, so I went with English (creative writing). It’s important to remember where you came from and I was a huge cinemaphile back in the day. I wouldn’t mind getting back into the groove if it means I get to write reviews and help these movies get publicity (whether good or bad).

These reviews are still going to follow the five-paragraph formula I use with books and WWE matches. The first paragraph will be a brief synopsis (without spoilers). The next three paragraphs will be aspects I liked or disliked about the medium. The final paragraph will be a summary of those three thoughts to tie it all together. I also still plan on using the same grading system, which is…

Extra Credit: a five star review of a movie which exceeded my expectations either by changing my worldview or making me relate to it on a deep emotional level. Examples include Pink Floyd the Wall, Pulp Fiction, and The Lego Movie.

Pass: a four star review of a movie which entertained me all the way through and met my expectations with no serious flaws. This is the most common grade I give since I usually expect that I’ll like what I watch.

Mixed: a three star review of a movie which was still entertaining despite some obvious flaws. The first movie I gave a mixed grade to was Dead Man Down, which had a bullying storyline where the kids never got any comeuppance.

Fail: a two star review for a movie that had too many glaring flaws, but I finished watching anyways. An example of a failing WWE match would be Nikki Bella vs. AJ Lee at Survivor Series 2014 for the Divas Championship, which lasted less than twenty seconds and had no real emotional investment to begin with.

Did Not Finish: a one star review of a movie that was so terrible that I stopped watching it. I tried watching an NXT match between Eva Marie and Carmella, but there were so many botches and awkward moments that it hurt my brain worse than a Tombstone Piledriver on thumb tacks.

I know this labor of love will love me back, especially since I’ve been away for so long and absence makes the heart grow fonder. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***DOMESTIC DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

(RE: The Faces of Death documentary series.)

DAD: What do you watch that shit for?!

ME: Because it’s cool!

JAMES: Because he’s a serial killer in training.