cheap, ugly, not entertaining

Some movies seem like bad ideas right from the very beginning. “Double Dragon” is one of those. Here’s a movie that seems to have used 1993’s “Super Mario Bros” as a template for what video games movies should be, and then somehow the filmmakers managed to make it worse as they went along.


Lumbering, plotless, and filled with a mixed bag of terrible actors and some that deserve much better than this, “Double Dragon” again plops us down into a dystopian, steampunk hell hole. Here it’s called New Angeles, and it’s basically the remains of Los Angeles after a quake that has turned everything topsy-turvy. The cops patrol by day, but a curfew is instituted at night- the best way to avoid marauding gangs.


The setting for the city actually takes from a bunch of other inspirations…and manages to reduce them in the process. The gangs themselves seem right out of “Escape from New York” or “The Warriors”, only the members come off goofy and braindead. TV News and commercials seem to be trying to be satirical, but nothing said there is funny, nor is it to have George Hamilton and Vanna White read the news. Then there’s the whole mystical element of the film which seems to be trying to go for “Big Trouble in Little China”.


The heroes here are Billy (Scott Wolf) and Jimmy (Mark Dacascos) Lee, a pair of martial artists who find themselves going head to head with a billionaire underworld kingpin named Kogo Shuko (Robert Patrick). He has acquired one half of a mystical medallion, which, if it finds its other half, can give the wearer ultimate power. The brothers of course have the other half, which leads to a lot of chase sequences.


With a plot this shallow, you would expect the film to maybe cover up some slow spots with humor. This tries, and it tries badly. The dialogue, especially between the Lee brothers is atrocious. “There’s a reason they call it martial arts and not martial science”, is one such example of the brother’s inane bickering. They also call each other “Ugg Lee”. Ho ho!


Wolf seems to be here more for comic relief, and is thus more of a dud. Nothing about him screams martial artist even when he is fighting, which leaves Dacascos, who people really should know from better films like “Brotherhood of the Wolf” for example, to do all the heavy lifting.


Then there’s Alyssa Milano, playing the head of a vigilante group called Power Corps. She’s another one you can’t take seriously, mostly because she lets her pixie blond haircut and cut-offs overcome whatever acting talent she has.


And Patrick deserves better. In “T2”, James Cameron made him one of the most intimidating villains of all time. Here, he looks like he’s been made up to look like musician George Michael. He seems to know just how awful and lame this movie is and so has taken it on himself to remove all seriousness from the performance- he hams it up so royally that the whole thing kinda becomes a mockery of the film itself.


From the henchman who suddenly becomes an ugly, nearly immobile, and ridiculously muscled version (that kinda reminded me of Fat Bastard, in terms of cheesy make-up effects), to all the pulled punches during fights, to the outrageously dated CGI, to the poorness of some of the casting choices, this movie can really only be good for a laugh. Even the action set pieces lack any sense of flair or excitement.


Above all “Double Dragon” mostly became the epitome of what video game movies were for- cheap cartoons made to make cash off unsuspecting people. Whether you like it or not all depends on your desire for cheap, ugly looking movies. I saw this movie as a kid and I believe I thought it was mediocre even then and now it just comes across as unbelievable waste. This movie does not get better with age.