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 Mask of the Ninja 2009-08-30 Casper Van Dien was Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers. Sure the movie didn't call for a lot of acting skills but he was perfect. I thought with that movie under his belt he would become fairly popular. There has been a lack of action stars and he fit that role fairly well. He could obviously do military and all-American without really acting. The next movie I saw him in was Dracula 3000 where he plays Captain Van Helsing (which isn't really fair since it was actually made the year before Starship Troopers) but it had Coolio in it and for some reason I think Coolio is something of a curse if you work with him. The next non-television film he was in was Starship Troopers 3, which was way better than Starship Troopers 2, so he at least dodged that bullet. (This is a relative comparison, Starship Troopers 3 is a questionable movie at best and I don't really recommend to anyone but the most hardcore of science fiction fans. They will enjoy Jolene Blalocks [vulcan chick in tight clothes from Star Trek Enterprise] lips throughout regardless of plot holes).  You may very well wonder why I am talking to such an extent about Science Fiction movies in a Ninjalicker Internet Movie Kung-Fu Internet Movie Database review. It's because those are more enjoyable films than the actual movie Mask of the Ninja which starred Casper Van Dien and I spent a majority of the film wondering what had happened to his career. I thought he had a career playing space marine guy set up for him for years to come and certainly all American action hero guy in lame but fun action movies but he never took off. I wondered (perhaps hoped) that he was off trying something new. Something new not being the train wreck that is Mask of the Ninja.  Do you remember the ninja movies that were popular in the mid 80's? Movies like Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja Ninja Ninja? The creators of Mask of the Ninja sure do and they spend a good portion of the movie re-creating the look, feel and atmosphere of those movies. If you went back and watched one of those movie now you would get the feeling that they don't really stand the test of time. The plots are confused or poor, The inclusion of westerners seems tacked on to make the movie accessible. The fact that an inordinate amount of ninja's re-located to Los Angeles rarely made sense unless you were on the production team and knew you couldn't afford to go out of state to film. Well, even knowing those problems the makers of Mask of the Ninja forged ahead and made a near scene for scene re-make of a standard ninja movie from 20 years ago.  Please play this on a loop in the background the rest of the time you are reading this review. There were always a lot of things that bothered me about Ninja movies, once I was old enough to realize when things didn't make sense and Mask of the Ninja could be a summary of them. You could do this yourself and make it into some sort of party game, but make a short list of all the things you know to be true of the mythology of Ninja's.  They used stealth more than head on tactics. They tried not to reveal their true identities should they be seen. That kind of went with the stealth thing.  Their allegiances were mainly political and mercantile. They killed in as quick and efficient manner as possible. They avoided direct conflict. Now, using these basic rules (you can add your own if you want to include things like magic, but I think that depends on the construct of the movie) every time one is broken, you get your cocktail enema. You could try and make the argument that the world of the movie could include its own definition of a ninja but they will often give short contradictory definitions within the structure of the film.  They do this in Mask of the Ninja. They do everything in Mask of the Ninja, minus teaching white hero guy some secret move he later uses to dispatch evil ninja leader. They couldn't get to that because Casper spends a goodly amount of time on his back falling out of consciousness because he just got a beat down. This movie does have clans and a daughter who is supposed to be hot and a multitude of ninjas who do the one things that annoys me more than anything else in movies of the ninja flavor. They walk around in plain sight in ninja suits. They guard doors, they stand by things, they assault a police station and they do it all dressed as a cliché ninja. Thing is, even I know those suits were mainly designed for hiding at night, so wearing them outside in the daytime is not going to help you hide. In fact, They are so conspicuous I think they might even draw attention as people start to wonder if a ninja cosplay convention is in town. I can tell you this. The ninjas who felt like they had to wear their ninja suits at all times were the ones who died out first, not the ones who survived for the last 600 generations.  Pretty much every ninja in this movie probably would have died on their way to work. Another problem with Mask of the Ninja, and I can only say this because I have been listening to Japanese for the last 8 years, if you are going to have a guy in your movie speak Japanese, get a native Japanese speaker or one real good language coach, because this guy sounds like me trying to say something for the first time. If you are going to write a movie, when you write something that reads a nonsensical please go back and try again. In this clip I could make the argument that if what Casper is saying is true, it would have been more sensible to not make the chip in the first place. search tags: movie mask of the ninja casper van dien review add comment to post #256 
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