Kickboxer: Retaliation

I don't know jack squat about real martial arts and I hate, hate, hate MMA aka ghey fight club.

But man this is a fun movie.

Apparently there's a story in there somewhere but who cares. Hardly a minute goes by without some kind of fight breaking out. Moussi has some pretty cool moves and the fights are choreographed in an interesting way. Even the soundtrack is big league

And is it just me or is Van Damme the coolest guy in movies? I don't mean obnoxious smarm like Bruce Willis. Or self-parody like Seagal. Or even the self-serious. Jason Statham. I mean, simply, cool.

Enjoyed this movie immensely.

So I'm sure if you sat through the whole movie you probably won't be as entertained as I was. I fell asleep early in the movie but woke up for one of the best fights I've ever seen in a movie had a rocky feeling to it except the fight was to the death so made it even better so it's at least worth watching the final fight you don't even have to know what is going on or what the movie is about to get entertainment from the final fight, I mean 400 lbs of Muscle.

I nearly loved the original KICKBOXER with Jean Claude Van Damme in his prime, and mildly liked the 2016 reboot (with Van Damme as the master), so it's not a surprise that I had to watch this sequel of a reboot. Well, it was good nearly on the same level of the 1989 original.

When it begins Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi) wins another MMA fight but victory is short-lived because he's kidnapped by some thugs and held prisoner in a jail in Thailandia for the murder of Tong Po that happened at the end of the predecessor. Soon we are introduced to promoter Thomas Moore (Christopher Lambert) that wants Sloane to fight against a mountain of a man that can easily crush him. So Sloane returns to his master Durand (Van Damme) who is partially blind and trains very hard for the big fight and you might have guessed how it will unfold.

I was really amazed that when I saw it I couldn't understand why it has a score of 4,9 and so many negative reviews. Well, the secret is: suspend disbelief and enjoy. The acting by Van Damme and Lambert was up to their decent standards, and the fight scenes very cool and kept me excited.

So, if you are into the KICKBOXER franchise don't miss it, and also if you are action fans, it's a very enjoyable time-passer.

It took some serious skills to screw this movie up so badly.

Moussi is much less green than the last film, yet that was better. He actually has some power now, but that doesn't help the final product much.

This action movie should have been an easy slam dunk, no one expected stellar acting. They had a slew of mma guys, legit martial arts veterans, the Highlander, the Mountain and Mike freaking Tyson - who by the way is by far the scariest fighter in this whole affair. Wasted him entirely, maybe it was because he made the rest look like chumps.

Definitely the worst part was the action choreography, which should have been the strongest part. Clearly like dumb money was calling the shots, a la typical Hollywood.

It's painfully obvious that whoever designed the fight scenes with the mountain NEVER fought a guy twice their size. They couldn't even figure out a competent theory of how to do it. The mountain killed Kurt a dozen times, but the choreographer never noticed. Kurt apparently has bouts of superstrength allowing him to match the mountain's power. Even when Kurt is down and done, Mongkut stops to roar and walk away. Then good ol' Kurt finds his way up without a mark on his face - the same face the mountain has been breaking for a while.

Truly a colossal bungling of a successful franchise reboot. It's so inexplicably poorly done, you must suspect that it was intentional.

Filthy boring, not even my craving for Van Dame saved, and the only scene I really wanted to watch, with Ronaldinho Gaúcho (lovely scene, 10 seconds, kkkk), I lost it, I had to go back to watch it, boring...