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 American Ninja 4 2009-05-05 At first I thought they had stopped at the trilogy. Usually when the main actor doesn’t come back for a film and you go ahead and make the film anyway that is sort of the dying song of a movie franchise. Let me warn you, big black guy did not return for this movie, but both the original American ninja (Michael Dudikoff) and the second American ninja (American ninja eXtreme) did return for this venture. There is also a guy who brings a frying pan into a fight with the local military. That’s the bit that stands out the most for me, the pan and how someone just let that go.  Ninja movies don’t have a lot of integrity. I am not looking for historical accuracy or realistic martial arts, I am looking for silly pulp movie making where people disappear and maybe do some crazy stuff some guy just made up. I want to see a helicopter explode with a throwing star. That works for me, I want posing and smack talk and some real ninjaing.  I guess what I really wanted was Ricky-Oh, the Story of Ricky. I mean, when your name is in the title TWICE you know you are a bad ass. What I was watching was American Ninja 4, the Annihilation. I have certain expectations based on a movies title. Something better get annihilated by the end of this movie and it shouldn’t be my will to watch American Ninja 5, which I recently found out existed and downloaded.  Let’s get to the movie. At some point the Ninja Sean from American Ninja 3 went from being a tournament fighter, which made some sense because a ninja would be a pretty good tournament fighter to a CIA agent. I don’t know if the CIA went around to small island tournaments where the local dictator was running things so he could ultimately choose the winner to make super ninja’s and sell drugs or some such crap. So they have to go to some third world place to do something for the CIA, no one really cares why the ninja is going there, we just want to get shit going on with other ninja. The most useful part of the introduction is that we learn from Sean that red ninjas are the strongest ones. That’s how you get the red suit. One of the oddest things that this movie brought into my life was it was the third time in three days I heard the word PONGO. First, it was a Japanese person’s nickname, then it was one of my co-workers dead dog and finally it was the ruffian rat boy in the movie.  But what is PONGO really, is it some Japanese animal zombie that assists ninja CIA agents? Be fucking interesting if it was, but nope, Pongo is a little bitch with a poor accent coach. That’s about all the plot we get through before Sean gets caught by the bad ninja guys with his new love interest. The only thing I have enjoyed about this so far is his pretty horrendous comment about her figure. After 44:41 the original American ninja enters to try and save the second American ninja which sort of implies that Joe is the better American ninja. You know I am hoping that they are going to fight. Why bring two acting powerhouses together if you aren’t going to make them kick the shit out of each other. They do, but then ruin it by having Sean actually be a guy disguised as Sean so they can allow him to lose, but strike two for the second American ninja because now he is unofficially Joe’s bitch.  Joe rarely talks throughout this movie. It was either a conscious choice on the part of the writer because he knew that Michael Dudikof can’t act or they were trying to make him tough and mysterious. I somehow doubt it was the latter as they stuck him in the Peace Corp. Joe somehow figures being a ninja isn’t enough to save the other American ninja so he goes to the reject cast of Mad Max for help. Then comes the ritual that makes little or no sense to me but seems to happen in movie worlds again and again. Often to join a gang or gain their respect you have to fight and beat their best member. I have many reservations with this initiation system. Mainly that if I beat the very best guy in a group that means that every other member within the group will suck even worse. Is this the kind of team I want on my side, the team that I could beat all by myself.  I also have a problem with increasing membership. The guy who started this gang (I am assuming he is the leader) would most likely be the first guy in the gang and therefore was beaten by every subsequent person who joined the gang. That guy, the leader, must really suck ass. Especially when I look at some of the standing strands of spaghetti that are hanging around in the background. How does this group increase by any size at all because once you have one fairly good member you aren’t going to get any more members joining, so the upper limit would be about 12. This happens in other films too where you actually have to kill the best guy to prove your worth. I have never gotten past the awkward logic of this one because you would continually be losing your best members and replacing them with, more than likely, injured newcomers.  Well, pass over that and lets get back to the flimsy story here. An epic battle ensues between mad max and government ground forces while Joe does some ninjaing into the complex. He changes black suits 2 or 3 times and eventually fights the fake second American Ninja and arrives too late to save the hostages. Oh, there were some other hostages. Another problem I have with this movie is that the American Ninja V2.1 does little to nothing to actually try and escape, which I believe makes him the worst movie ninja ever.  Everyone has been loaded outside in faux Chinese coolie getups to be burned to death. Joe comes outside in a zippy yellow ninja suit and has an odd stand off against the cartoon character ninja who has done little but an obstacle course and kill one of his one minions so far in the film. This is the climatic battle, but really, I forget that except for the time when they stand looking at each other and making gestures I used to make up when I was 12 for ninjas. Then they fight and Joe walks away. He barely speaks a word and the American Ninja Jr. jumps in with a ‘He doesn’t say much, but he gets the job done.’ Kind of quip and the awesome end song rolls as Joe walks amongst dead bodies.  Way to go peace corp.Endsong. search tags: movie american ninja 4 four review add comment to post #235 American Ninja 4 Bonus Pics:Please wait while all the images load.         And finally, the single greatest image I have ever lifted from a movie. The most horrendous travisty ever visited on mankind.  
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